The simple device can produce water, oxygen and fuel from lunar land

A solar-driven device can produce water, oxygen and gasoline from the lunar land for future astronauts in the moon.

It has been known to be a lot of water locked in minerals in the moon. But the suggestions of harvesting resources from the lunar land, known as regolith, often have a complicated, strong approach for long lunar colonies.

Now, Lu Wang In the Chinese University of Hong Kong and his companions with a simple solar-powered reactor will produce useful resources by expressing the day’s regolith and the co₂ destroyed by astronauts.

To conduct their experiments, researchers use lunar samples collected China’s Chang’e 5 missions and simulated samples made from terrestrial stones.

In the reactor, the light and heat from the sun first taking water from the lunar land, the land acts as a cause of a co₂ and water to perform carbon monoxide, oxygen and hydrogen. Some water from the first step will be left to all and available for other goods.

Lunar land has many minerals that can have a reaction paper, but a compound called ilmenite is thought to be one of the main catalysts, as Wang.

“The chemical reaction mechanism is very appealing and beneficial and may be relevant to the creation of the moon resources,” as Haihui Joy Jiang At the University of Sydney, Australia, not included in the study.

“To find out if this process becomes a practical and possible, ideal method of deployment of the month, there is a residual research and future Jiang questions.

Wang acknowledged that the process scaled to make enough water, oxygen and gasoline for a lunar colony is very hard. “Severe around the moon has unique challenges, including temperature change, ultra-high vacuum, severe solar radiation,” he said. “In addition, the heterogeneity of the lunar land and the lack of resources in the co₂ also represent many technical implementation.”