ISS Water Recovery System

I was part of a VIP tour in October 2008, just a few weeks before the November 15 launch of STS-126, which delivered the Marshall-designed water recovery system to the ISS, so our tour included a speaker who described the operation of the system. The ISS water recovery system, he explained, is not a closed-loop system; it can recover about 110 out of every 115 gallons of water. The rest is a waste "brine" byproduct, discolored by the chemicals used in the pretreating process.