Scientists have developed a technology that allows water to be extracted quickly and at minimal cost from lunar soil. This opens up possibilities for sustaining life in environments created from local materials.
Water from lunar soil
Chinese scientists have developed a technology that allows water to be extracted from lunar soil in an environment filled with carbon dioxide, and have used it to convert the latter into oxygen and organic compounds that can be used for growing plants.
Overall, the concept of using lunar soil to create a habitable environment is far from new. Scientists have been talking about this possibility for several decades, because there is plenty of oxygen and hydrogen there. Therefore, why not replicate the natural processes occurring on Earth?
In practice, however, this still required several stages of energy-intensive actions. Or delivering water from Earth to the Moon, which would result in even greater costs, since one gallon (just under 4 liters) would cost $83,000 in that case.
Results of the experiments
The effectiveness of the new technology has already been confirmed experimentally. For this purpose, scientists even utilized a small piece of lunar soil brought back to Earth by the Chang’e-5 spacecraft. In addition, an experiment was conducted with significantly larger volumes of simulated samples, and an industrial facility was built for this purpose.
Thanks to recent missions, we know that water in lunar soil is much more widespread than previously thought. However, experiments on Earth are experiments on Earth. On the Moon, something could go wrong.
In addition, the authors of the study used ilmenite, a titanium-containing rock that, although very common on our moon, is not found everywhere. In addition, the composition of rocks on the Moon is very unstable, and all this can have unpleasant consequences.
Technological limitations also continue to pose an obstacle, as current catalytic performance is still insufficient to fully sustain human life in environments beyond Earth.
According to phys.org
