LIPOLYTICA

Yarrowia lipolytica can turn urine into food

High-Level Project Summary

Our team worked on finding a solution on how to make astronauts life easier by turning their urine into water in the space, using yeast called Yarrowia Lipolytica. I know it sounds gross, urine as a food, right? But we will prove to you how it is possible.Urine is 95 % water and that is what makes the process easy.And unused parts like urea could be fed to yeast.

Link to Final Project

https://wetransfer.com/downloads/c2a72a05567dfb80dd356b81207644e620221001130715/9d5007866905f846422d7ad98588e98d20221001130716/732233

Link to Project "Demo"

https://youtu.be/HhkyD3qUl5s

Detailed Project Description

With our project we hope to make astronauts life easier. As we said earlier urine can be turned into food and water for astronauts by following the next steps.First the astronaut urinates. Next we have the process of condensation , concentration. Next is crystallistaion , nitrification and electrodialysis.And here is where the magic part happens. The urine after the previous steps is mixed with the hygenic shower water. After that we have nanofiltration and reverse osmosis. And by following these steps you have recycled water and urea as side product. We did an experiment and we proved that yarrowia lipolytica grows the most and fastest, that is, it has the highest optical density in the shortest time growing on urea compered to when it is growing on ammonium sulfat and creatine. from the second research, the results showed us that ideal concentration of urea is 20g|L. We made it to help the astronauts supply them with rich biomass of yarrowia lipolitica to mantain their health into space. it can give them so much great health benefits like packed with vitamin B, contains powerful antioxidants, also stabilize blood sugar levels, support immune system, boost your energy and immune system. And also it can help them to not bring too much water from earth, because their baggage is limited.

We used PowerPoint presentation, we created a short film on Shortcut and edited the photos on Photopea to show you how our magic imagination came true and to help the astronauts,

Space Agency Data

The main thing that inspired us for this project was to help the astronauts with their limited luggage. Their source of food into space is limited so our team created a solution for it. Our research was how side products from urine filtration can be used for food production.

Hackathon Journey

Space Apps for us it is a huge experience, fun, learning and meeting new friends.

We have learned new things from our researches and team work. This competition makes us proud and grateful for our participation, We had so much fun putting work in this project, This competition boosted our competitive and fighting spirit.

LIPOLYTICA

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