Researchers propose method for removing toxic perchlorates from Martian water
Of the twelve research grants just awarded by NASA to develop a variety of new technologies for astronomy and future space exploration, one proposes a new method for removing the toxic perchlorates that are thought to exist in all Martian water.
What if we could make the perchlorates just vanish? This is the innovative solution we propose here, taking advantage of the reduction of chlorate and perchlorate to chloride and oxygen being thermodynamically favorable, if kinetically slow. This is the promise of our regenerative perchlorate reduction system, leveraging synthetic biology to take advantage of and improve upon natural perchlorate reducing bacteria.
These terrestrial microbes are not directly suitable for off-world use, but their key genes pcrAB and cld, which catalyze the reduction of perchlorates to chloride and oxygen, have been previously identified and well-studied. This proposed work exploits the prior work studying perchlorate-reducing bacteria by engineering this perchlorate reduction pathway into the spaceflight proven Bacillus subtilis strain 168, under the control of a robust, active promoter. This solution is highly sustainable and scalable, and unlike traditional water purification approaches, outright eliminates perchlorates rather than filtering them to dump somewhere nearby.
Essentially the researchers will try to engineer bacteria known to be able to survive space so that it carries genes from another microbe able of changing the perchlorate into chloride and oxygen.
This study as well as the other eleven are only in phase one of their contracts, with the award of later phases determined by their initial successes or failures.
Of the twelve research grants just awarded by NASA to develop a variety of new technologies for astronomy and future space exploration, one proposes a new method for removing the toxic perchlorates that are thought to exist in all Martian water.
What if we could make the perchlorates just vanish? This is the innovative solution we propose here, taking advantage of the reduction of chlorate and perchlorate to chloride and oxygen being thermodynamically favorable, if kinetically slow. This is the promise of our regenerative perchlorate reduction system, leveraging synthetic biology to take advantage of and improve upon natural perchlorate reducing bacteria.
These terrestrial microbes are not directly suitable for off-world use, but their key genes pcrAB and cld, which catalyze the reduction of perchlorates to chloride and oxygen, have been previously identified and well-studied. This proposed work exploits the prior work studying perchlorate-reducing bacteria by engineering this perchlorate reduction pathway into the spaceflight proven Bacillus subtilis strain 168, under the control of a robust, active promoter. This solution is highly sustainable and scalable, and unlike traditional water purification approaches, outright eliminates perchlorates rather than filtering them to dump somewhere nearby.
Essentially the researchers will try to engineer bacteria known to be able to survive space so that it carries genes from another microbe able of changing the perchlorate into chloride and oxygen.
This study as well as the other eleven are only in phase one of their contracts, with the award of later phases determined by their initial successes or failures.