The production of oxygen and metal from lunar regolith

Schwandt, Carsten; Hamilton, James A.; Fray, Derek J.; Crawford, Ian

doi:10.1016/j.pss.2012.06.011

Cited by 116 publications

(69 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…In addition to their scientific interest, better characterisation of the composition, volatile content and mechanical properties of lunar regolith will also be important for planning In-Situ Resource Utilisation (ISRU) applications in support of future lunar exploration activities (e.g. Anand et al, 2012;Schwandt et al, 2012). As noted in Section 2.4, the nature of relatively cold high-latitude regoliths, which have never been sampled or studied in situ, and which may contain a volatile component, are of particular interest.…”

Section: Regolith Processesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Back to the Moon: The scientific rationale for resuming lunar surface exploration

Crawford

Anand

Cockell

et al. 2012

Planetary and Space Science

131

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The lunar geological record has much to tell us about the earliest history of the Solar System, the origin and evolution of the Earth-Moon system, the geological evolution of rocky planets, and the near-Earth cosmic environment throughout Solar System history. In addition, the lunar surface offers outstanding opportunities for research in astronomy, astrobiology, fundamental physics, life sciences and human physiology and medicine. This paper provides an interdisciplinary review of outstanding lunar science objectives in all of these different areas. It is concluded that addressing them satisfactorily will require an end to the 40-year hiatus of lunar surface exploration, and the placing of new scientific instruments on, and the return of additional samples from, the surface of the Moon. Some of these objectives can be achieved robotically (e.g. through targeted sample return, the deployment of geophysical networks, and the placing of antennas on the lunar surface to form radio telescopes). However, in the longer term, most of these scientific objectives would benefit significantly from renewed human operations on the lunar surface. For these reasons it is highly desirable that current plans for renewed robotic surface exploration of the Moon are developed in the context of a future human lunar exploration programme, such as that proposed by the recently formulated Global Exploration Roadmap.

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Section: Regolith Processesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Back to the Moon: The scientific rationale for resuming lunar surface exploration

Crawford

Anand

Cockell

et al. 2012

Planetary and Space Science

131

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“…Numerous strategies for extracting oxygen from regolith material on the lunar surface have been proposed; summaries of such processes can be found in previous publications (Taylor and Carrier, 1993;Schrunk et al 2007;Schwandt et al 2012a). Some of the more wellresearched processes are the chemical reduction of regolith-derived iron oxides either with hydrogen, followed by the electrolysis of water (Gibson et al, 1994;Allen et al 1996;Li et al 2012;Sanders and Larson, 2012), or alternatively with methane, which would require a further methane-reforming step and the electrolysis of water (Friedlander, 1985).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A previous NASA-funded study (undertaken in 2004) investigated the applicability of the FFC-Cambridge process for the electrolysis of lunar ilmenite, termed the Ilmenox process (Schwandt et al 2012a). At the time of this previous work, the development of the FFC-Cambridge process was still in its early stages and had only been proven at a laboratory scale.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In their study, Schwandt et al (2012aSchwandt et al ( , 2012b showed that oxygen could be obtained by the FFC-Cambridge electrolysis of pellets of the mineral ilmenite at 900 °C using an inert anode (either doped tin oxide (Kilby et al, 2010) or a calcium titanate/calcium ruthenate mixture (Jiao et al, 2009;Jiao and Fray, 2010)). The authors also described the electro-generation of oxygen from pellets of the lunar simulant JSC-1.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Proving the viability of an electrochemical process for the simultaneous extraction of oxygen and production of metal alloys from lunar regolith

Lomax

Conti

Khan

et al. 2020

Planetary and Space Science

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The development of an efficient process to simultaneously extract oxygen and metals from lunar regolith by way of in-situ resource utilisation (ISRU) has the potential to enable sustainable activities beyond Earth. The Metalysis-FFC (Fray, Farthing, Chen) process has recently been proven for the industrial-scale production of metals and alloys, leading to the present investigation into the potential application of this process to regolith-like 2 materials. This paper provides a proof-of-concept for the electro-deoxidation of powdered solid-state lunar regolith simulant using an oxygen-evolving SnO2 anode, and constitutes the first in-depth study of regolith reduction by this process that fully characterises and quantifies both the anodic and cathodic products. Analysis of the resulting metallic powder shows that 96% of the total oxygen was successfully extracted to give a mixed metal alloy product. Approximately a third of the total oxygen in the sample was detected in the off-gas, with the remaining oxygen being lost to corrosion of the reactor vessel. We anticipate, with appropriate adjustments to the experimental setup and operating parameters, to be able to isolate essentially all of the oxygen from lunar regolith simulants using this process, leading to the exciting possibility of concomitant oxygen generation and metal alloy production on the lunar surface.

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“…www.nature.com/scientificreports www.nature.com/scientificreports/ mineralogical variations within a simulant may give unexpected results during processes such as H 2 reduction, oxide cracking and oxygen extraction, microwave sintering or metal extraction 34,40,41 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

EAC-1A: A novel large-volume lunar regolith simulant

Engelschiøn

Eriksson

Cowley

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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The European Astronaut Centre (EAC) is currently constructing the European Lunar Exploration Laboratory (LUNA), a large training and operations facility to be located adjacent to EAC at the DLR (German Aerospace Centre) campus in Cologne, Germany. With an estimated representative lunar testbed area of approximately 660 m 2 , a large volume of lunar regolith simulant material is needed for this purpose. In this study, a basanitic sandy silt from a quarry located in the Siebengebirge Volcanic Field is evaluated as a large-volume source of material. The focus of this project has been to conduct a physical and chemical characterisation of the fine-grained material to be used in LUNA; the European Astronaut Centre lunar regolith simulant 1 (EAC-1 A). The physical characterisation tests undertaken include sphericity, density measurements, cohesion and static angle of repose, with mineralogical investigations via petrographical analysis with optical microscope and SEM, XRF, XRD and DSC measurements. The results of the EAC-1A tests are compared to published data on existing widely used lunar regolith simulants, namely JSC-1A, JSC-2A, NU-LHT-3M, DNA and FJS-1.

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The production of oxygen and metal from lunar regolith

Cited by 116 publications

References 28 publications

Back to the Moon: The scientific rationale for resuming lunar surface exploration

Back to the Moon: The scientific rationale for resuming lunar surface exploration

Proving the viability of an electrochemical process for the simultaneous extraction of oxygen and production of metal alloys from lunar regolith

EAC-1A: A novel large-volume lunar regolith simulant

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