Air
Quality, composition, and oxygen.
Air is treated as a managed resource, not an ambient assumption. Heliphere delivers atmospheric control systems for sealed and semi-sealed environments.
The problem
Air is fragile in sealed environments.
In sealed or semi-sealed spaces, air quality can degrade quickly without continuous control. Filters, consumables, and ventilation constraints drive risk.
Research focus
Air as a controlled loop.
- Non-consumable purification for particulates and VOCs
- CO₂ capture and reuse for food and materials
- Oxygen generation in sealed habitats
- Integrated control of humidity, pressure, and temperature
Inside the loop
The shortest failure clock.
Water problems give you days and food problems give you weeks — atmosphere problems are measured in minutes. The Heliphere air loop treats the atmosphere as managed inventory: exhaled CO₂ becomes crop fertiliser, breathed-out humidity becomes recovered water, and oxygen is produced on site rather than stockpiled.
The air loop's five sub-loops as a reference architecture: habitable air is cleaned and dried, its CO₂ concentrated and routed to crops, oxygen balanced between photosynthesis and electrolysis, and exhaust heat recovered before anything leaves the loop. Every process shown carries ISS ECLSS or submarine life-support heritage.
1.04 kg
of CO₂ exhaled per person-day — captured and routed to crops as concentrated fertiliser
~2.3 L
of water vapour breathed out daily — recovered as near-distilled condensate for the water loop
~25 m²
of high-density crops can supply one person's entire oxygen demand
20+ years
of regenerable CO₂ scrubbing aboard the ISS — zero filter cartridges consumed since 2001
System connections
Air becomes a managed resource, not a given.
In a sealed environment, nothing about the atmosphere can be taken for granted. The air loop captures and routes every component — CO₂, O₂, humidity, particulates — to wherever in the system it is most useful.
- → Food — CO₂ routed directly to cultivation zones as concentrated crop fertiliser
- → Water — condensate from humidity control recovered and returned to the water loop
- → Materials — captured CO₂ fed into mineralization reactions for structural output
- ← Food — O₂ produced by photosynthesis continuously replenishes the atmosphere
- ← Energy — continuous power for scrubbers, fans, and precision control systems
Development focus
Eliminating every consumable from the air loop.
Biological CO₂ Scrubbing
Plants as the primary air system
Living plant systems serve as the primary CO₂ removal and oxygen generation mechanism. Photosynthetic cultivation zones continuously process atmospheric CO₂ and return oxygen — eliminating dependence on chemical scrubbers and compressed gas resupply.
Electrochemical CO₂ Capture
Chemical resilience and redundancy
Solid sorbent and electrochemical CO₂ capture systems serve as a resilient fallback and augmentation to biological scrubbing. These systems concentrate captured CO₂ into a usable stream routed directly to food cultivation zones and materials mineralisation processes.
Non-consumable Purification
No filters, no resupply
Catalytic, photocatalytic and plasma-based systems remove volatile organic compounds, pathogens and particulates. These approaches regenerate continuously without consumable media, eliminating scheduled filter replacement and the associated logistics dependency.
Oxygen Generation
Produced, not stored
Oxygen generation through both photosynthesis and water electrolysis is a core focus. Producing oxygen in situ eliminates compressed gas stockpiles and resupply schedules — the two highest-risk failure modes in conventional sealed-environment life support.
Atmospheric Water Harvesting
The air loop as a water source
Dehumidification processes already required for atmospheric control are integrated with water recovery systems. Condensate from humidity management is a continuous pure water source requiring no additional extraction infrastructure — the air loop produces water as a byproduct of doing its primary job.
Precision Atmosphere Control
All variables, one system
Closed-loop sensing and actuation architectures manage O₂ fraction, CO₂ concentration, humidity, pressure and temperature simultaneously. Unified control eliminates the conflicts that arise when these variables are managed by separate systems with competing setpoints.
Contaminant Monitoring
Real-time air quality intelligence
Continuous sensor networks detect trace gases, biological agents, particulates and chemical contaminants. Early detection enables automated response before contaminant levels become hazardous — converting the air loop from a passive environment into an actively managed safety system.
Shipped as standard modules
The air loop in 20ft boxes.
Every sub-loop above ships as a standardised 20ft module on the common Heliphere interface — sized, powered and rated as a reference architecture, not bespoke plant.
HA-01
Habitat Atmosphere
Full air-handling plant: HEPA and electrostatic filtration, catalytic trace-contaminant reactor, UV-C stage, dehumidification with condensate capture, energy-loop conditioning coils and zone damper manifold.
HA-02
Carbon Recovery
Regenerable solid-amine and molecular-sieve CO₂ beds with an electrochemical capture stack, vacuum-swing regeneration skid, compressor, buffer tanks and routing manifold to grow zones and mineralisation.
HA-03
Oxygen Plant
PEM electrolyser stack with deionised-water polishing, O₂ drying and buffer storage, H₂ export to the energy loop, catalytic recombiners, gas-detection safety chain and medical-O₂ backup.
HA-04
Grow Atmosphere
CO₂ injection and distribution manifold, high-capacity dehumidification with condensate recovery, canopy circulation fans, grow-light heat-rejection interface, ethylene scrubbing and VPD control instrumentation.
HA-05
Exhaust & Heat Recovery
Counterflow plate heat exchangers, regenerable activated-carbon and HEPA polishing beds, controlled vent and recirculation dampers; the sealed variant swaps venting for airlock scavenge and make-up gas.
structurehidden detail (x-ray)envelope / keep-outplan view · 20 ft HC ISO · concept design
Beyond Earth
The same loop, off Earth.
On the Moon there is no atmosphere to draw from or vent to: the exhaust sub-loop disappears entirely, replaced by airlock gas recovery and leakage make-up, while oxygen partial pressure and hull pressure-decay become continuous safety-critical monitors and CO₂ scrubbing carries N+1 to N+2 hardware redundancy. On Mars the ~95% CO₂ atmosphere flips from threat to resource — compressed ambient CO₂ becomes free grow-zone enrichment, and NASA's MOXIE experiment has already demonstrated oxygen made directly from Martian air. Loop closure targets rise from ≥80% at remote Earth sites to ~100% off-world, where every gram of gas that leaks is permanently lost mission mass.