AN ANALYTICAL CASE STUDY
In our case study 1 kg of aluminum powder is selected for conversion
into useful fuel onboard. It is evident from Figure 2 that
aluminum alloys are the major constituent of the space debris [37],
which often collide with the ISS. Note that using the recommended
technique (see Figure1(a-b)), we estimated that, about 97 % of
aluminum powder could be acquired from the hoarded aluminum debris. A
loss of 3-5 % is anticipated after the water atomization process
because of the sieving.
Note that by varying the water jet speed we could achieve the desired
size of the powder. Granules’ size can be adjusted by either the water
jet pressure or the nozzle size adjustment in which the molten liquid is
poured [34, 38]. Water jet pressure can be controlled either by the
nozzle jet size or water flow rate.
The process layout is depicted in Figure 1(a-b) . The required
amount of electric power, water, heat, and the scale of
pressure for converting the 1 kg of aluminum debris into fuel are
highlighted in Table-1 . In order to process 1 kg of debris in a
visual separator, an amount of 1.85 milliwatts power is required at an
operating temperature of 40o C at a pressure of 700
kPa.