How is the movie Apollo 13 related to rebreather diving?

[Seaweed Doc]

I watched this movie at least 5 times maybe 15-20 years ago. I have only been scuba diving for 2 years. I am an OC Rec diver but have read a lot about rebreathers in books and online especially in the last year. It just dawned on me today about the scrubbers in the lunar module and rebreathers.

So did NASA technology and research contribute to the progression of rebreathers?

Don't know for sure, but rebreathers predate NASA by decades. I suspect knowledge transfer from rebreathers to NASA was more important.

Don't subs use scrubbers as well?

 

[broncobowsher]

I don't think subs use scrubbers, normally. I remember watching some training videos that involves spreading a version of sorb onto a bunk with a crew trapped in a compartment as part of the emergency plan.

Old school was just let the CO2 build up as the O2 supply was the bigger issue. That is why the diesels spend a lot of time running on the surface. Not just to run the diesel but also get fresh air for the crew. Modern nukes, I got a friend I could ask, not sure if he is allowed to give the answer. But it would be easy enough to do by freezing the CO2 out of the air. You have limitless energy, you just need something cold enough for the CO2 to solidify against.

 

[mdwalter]

I don't think subs use scrubbers, normally. I remember watching some training videos that involves spreading a version of sorb onto a bunk with a crew trapped in a compartment as part of the emergency plan

Submarines use liquid monoethanolamine as a scrubber material because it is regenerative. Basically they spray the Amine in a chamber crossword old Air from the sub is flowing. The Amine binds to the CO2, removing it from the air. The liquid then goes through another chamber where the CO2 is unbound from the Amine and ends up in some water which is pumped overboard to get rid of it. The clean Amine then goes back to the first chamber for another round of CO2 removal.

 

[broncobowsher]

Submarines use liquid monoethanolamine as a scrubber material because it is regenerative. Basically they spray the Amine in a chamber crossword old Air from the sub is flowing. The Amine binds to the CO2, removing it from the air. The liquid then goes through another chamber where the CO2 is unbound from the Amine and ends up in some water which is pumped overboard to get rid of it. The clean Amine then goes back to the first chamber for another round of CO2 removal.

Cool. I don't think I would have found that normally. Actually sounds simpler than trying to freeze it out.
Sorb on a bunk was an emergency procedure from an old black and white training video, probably still valid if the liquid system goes down.

 

[lowwall]

Submarines use liquid monoethanolamine as a scrubber material because it is regenerative. Basically they spray the Amine in a chamber crossword old Air from the sub is flowing. The Amine binds to the CO2, removing it from the air. The liquid then goes through another chamber where the CO2 is unbound from the Amine and ends up in some water which is pumped overboard to get rid of it. The clean Amine then goes back to the first chamber for another round of CO2 removal.

Thanks for this. It led me to The National Academies Press which is an amazing resource for a wide variety of interesting papers that can be freely downloaded and shared.

Monoethanolamine is one of the substances covered in the attached paper, although except for an overview of submarine internal atmospheric circulatory system, it's about setting exposure limits for various substances. "Emergency and Continuous Exposure Guidance Levels for Selected Submarine Contaminants: Volume 1 (2007)"