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NASA's system was developed for smaller-scale, space-based applications. However, the technology is scalable for larger industrial and municipal water treatment applications. Implementation of the Ammonia Recovery System could significantly reduce nitrogen content from water treatment processes, meaningfully improving the quality of water. This system offers a novel way to reduce nitrogen water pollutants, while allowing for the nitrogen to be collected and reused- reducing environmental and public health risks and providing an environmentally friendly fertilizer option. NASAs environmental solutions work to sustain life on earth through space based technology The adaptable nature of this system gives it potentially broad applications in a wide variety of industries; it is particularly ideal for on-site remediation of wastewater in places like condo complexes, hotels and water parks. Current methods of ammonia recovery could not meet NASAs mission requirements, so a new process was devised to optimize for high ammonia selectivity, simplicity, low volume , low power usage and zero contaminants in the effluent. To do this, NASA designed a novel regenerable struvite-formation system for the capture of ammonia. This system has three primary functions: 1) Removal of ammonia from wastewater using a media that is highly selective for ammonia 2) Capture of the ammonia for later use (e.g., as a fertilizer) 3) Regeneration of the capture media for reuse in the system

NASA's Method of Evaluating Adhesive Bond Strength is an accurate, robust, quantitative, and nondestructive bond strength measurement method that meets an immediate need in composite manufacturing. Even with careful control of the bonding procedure, destructive testing has shown that bonded joint strength shows substantial variation. Prior art in the field is insensitive to weak interfacial bonding, which leads to poor service life and potential catastrophic failure. Using NASA's method, phase measurements are acquired at a single frequency and then swept to obtain measurements at other frequencies. Narrowband filtering removes extraneous frequencies, which allows for much lower phase measurement uncertainty than other methods. Digital sine wave generation allows for better phase measurement resolution. The resultant system is a phase-based ultrasonic measurement tool for interrogating bonded joints and detecting weak adhesion with superior sensitivity than the state of the art. This new method models adhesive interfaces as a distributed spring system, where the interfacial stiffness constants of the joint can be determined from the zero- crossing frequency of the phase response and the "sharpness" or slope of the phase response. Previous theoretical research has shown that a linear correlation exists between interfacial stiffness constants and mechanically-measured interfacial bond strength. As such, the ultrasonic phase measurement method identifies intermediate bond strengths, rather than simply detecting good or bad bonds. This technique verifies bond quality in metal and composite joint systems, including those commonly found in aerospace, automotive, and many other transportation and infrastructure designs. The demonstrated ultrasonic phase method is applicable to a variety of bonding material systems.

NASA’s PLED thermal inspection system consists of an array of high- powered LED chips configured to deliver controlled pulses of visible light. The system includes 8 LED chip arrays, mounted on an aluminum heat sink and housed in a hood configuration. The inspection hood is specially designed with filters to prevent internal reflections. The LEDs are powered by regulated power supplies and controlled via a computer interface that synchronizes heat pulses with an infrared camera. An acrylic filter is placed over the LEDs to block residual infrared radiation, ensuring that only visible light reaches the target surface. The system’s infrared camera, operating in the mid-wave infrared (MWIR) range does not detect the visible light and captures the transient thermal response of the material, allowing for precise defect detection. By eliminating the need for high-intensity broadband infrared sources, the PLED system provides a cleaner and more accurate thermal response, particularly for unpainted metals and additively manufactured (AM) components. Performance validation of the PLED system has demonstrated significant advantages over traditional flash thermography. In tests on aluminum samples with material loss and AM Ti-6Al-4V metal specimens, the PLED system successfully detected defects with superior contrast and no heat source reflections. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) applied to PLED inspection data revealed clearer defect indications compared to flash-based methods, which introduced unwanted artifacts due to transient reflections. Additionally, the PLED system enabled quantitative thermal diffusivity measurements, offering a new approach to single-sided material characterization. NASA's PLED thermal inspection technology is available for patent licensing. Potential applications include corrosion detection in aerospace components, quality control of AM metal parts, structural health monitoring of industrial materials, and more.