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Issued patent

Optical concentration sensor for liquid solution

An issued NASA patent from the Technology Transfer catalog.

View at technology.nasa.gov
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About this technology

Overview

Innovators at the NASA Kennedy Space Center have developed a new optical sensor for measuring concentration in a liquid solution. The sensor was designed for measuring the pretreat solution concentration within the Universal Waste Management System (UWMS), a specialized toilet designed for the International Space Station (ISS) and other future missions. The sensor was developed to replace the current pretreat concentration sensor within the UWMS that uses electrical conductivity instead of light-based methods. Using established methodologies and commercial components, the new sensor can precisely measure the concentration or pretreat within the waste treatment solution using the light passed through and scattered by the solution. The optical sensor can be adapted to measure the concentration of solutions across various industries.