Making Oxygen From Moon Dust

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There is a lot of regolith on the Moon. And regolith is full of oxygen. If we could make oxygen from the regolith that would be awesome for potential Moon colonists.

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Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

At first glance, the Moon seems empty and void of anything. But there are some resources there. If we could use them and make some of the key provisions for lunar colonists that would be more than useful for the future colonization of the Moon. One of the most important things for any colonization effort is oxygen because it is just awesome for breathing but it is also great for making rocket fuel.

Rock + Heat + Electricity = Oxygen

In the Materials and Electrical Components Laboratory that is part of the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in the Netherlands a prototype of a factory that can make oxygen from simulated Moondust has recently been launched. The scientists and engineers from ESA can now observe the device at work and adjust the technologies that one day should allow us to live on the Moon.

Research of the samples that we brought back from the Moon showed us that regolith from the Moon is made in large by from oxygen. Around 40 – 45 %. The problem is that the oxygen is bound in oxides that are part of the regolith and thus hard to get to. The device at ESTEC gets the oxygen out of the simulated regolith using molten salt electrolysis. The mixture is heated up to a temperature of 950° Celsius. At this point, the regolith is still solid but as electricity passes through the hot mixture the oxygen gets released.

Free Metals As A Bonus

An interesting bonus is that the regolith without the oxygen is transformed into useful metal alloys. The process was originally developed by a British company named Metalysis for the commercial production of metals and alloys. As they were making their metals and alloys they encountered and unwanted byproduct – oxygen in the form of carbon oxide and carbon dioxide. ESTEC took the process and adjusted it so the main product now is oxygen instead of metals and alloys. So far the oxygen factory is working well. The oxygen is at the moment being released into the wild but soon – after some needed adjustments – it should get stored for further use.

Alexander Meurisse from ESA and his colleagues are now working on improving the process. For example, they are looking into what alloys can be made thanks to the process to make it as useful for future lunar colonists as possible. But the regolith on the Moon changes a lot – it varies a lot depending on where exactly you get it.

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