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Washington: British engineers are developing a process that will be used to extract oxygen from lunar dust, leaving behind metal powders that could be 3D printed into building materials for a moon base.
It could be a first step towards the creation of an extraterrestrial oxygen extraction plant. This would help enable exploration and sustain life on the Moon while avoiding the huge cost of sending materials from Earth.
The oxygen generated would be used primarily to make rocket fuel, but it could also supply air to lunar colonists. The project is part of ESA’s preparations to establish a permanent and sustainable lunar presence. The astronauts will live and work on the Moon, where they will help develop and test the technologies needed for more distant missions in deep space.
Lunar regolith, the thin layer of dusty rock that covers the Moon, is not that different from minerals found on Earth. By weight, it contains about 45% oxygen which is bonded to metals such as iron and titanium, making it unavailable.
The British company Metalysis has already developed a mineral extraction process that is used by industries on Earth to produce metals for production. Earlier this year, it was shown to work well with simulated lunar regolith.
The electrochemical process takes place in a specially designed chamber: those used for research are about the size of a washing machine. The oxygen-containing material is immersed in molten salt, heated to 950 degrees Celsius.
A current is then passed through which triggers the extraction of oxygen and migration through the liquid salt to collect in an electrode, leaving behind a mixture of metal powders. As part of the current project, Metalysis engineers are fine-tuning the technique taking into account its lunar application.
The big difference is that, on Earth, the oxygen generated is not necessary, but in space it will be the most important product of the process. This means that it must be designed to produce as much gas as possible.
Engineers will tinker with the process by adjusting the electrical current and reagents to increase the amount of oxygen as they try to reduce the temperature needed to produce it. This will help reduce the energy required, which is already a premium on the Moon.
They will also work to reduce the size of the chamber in which the process takes place so that it can be transported efficiently to the Moon. In parallel, ESA and Metalysis challenged innovators to develop an in-process monitoring system that could be used to track oxygen production in future lunar mining facilities.
“A few years ago we realized that the seemingly irrelevant byproduct of our earth-based mineral extraction process could have far-reaching applications in space exploration,” said Ian Mellor, CEO of Metalysis. “We look forward to continuing to explore with ESA and our industrial partners how to prepare our Earth technology for space,” added Mellor.
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