CO₂ Scrubber Chemistry Lab

This lab compares the three CO₂-scrubbing chemistries actually flown on spacecraft — lithium hydroxide, solid amine, and 5A zeolite molecular sieve — on the properties that matter for mission planning: how much CO₂ per gram of sorbent a packed bed can hold, how quickly it saturates under a given cabin CO₂ load and temperature, and whether the material can be regenerated for reuse or must be discarded after a single cycle. A particle-flow visualization shows CO₂ gas entering the bed from below and being captured by the sorbent granules, while a live capacity-vs-time curve tracks the selected chemistry against the other two.