11/26/2022 0 Comments Harvestmoon wonderful lifeIt’s a pretty straightforward process, but there is a catch: it’s very energy hungry. Before pure aluminum can be released using electrolysis (in what is known as the Hall-Heroult process), alumina refineries must first refine naturally occurring bauxite ore to extract the alumina (from which pure aluminum is later retrieved). On the Moon, the oxygen would be the main product and the aluminum (or other metal) extracted would be a potentially useful byproduct.Īlumina (aluminum oxide) refinery. In this case, the oxygen is produced as a byproduct. An electrical current is passed through a liquid form of aluminum oxide (commonly called alumina) via electrodes, to separate the aluminum from the oxygen. On Earth this process is commonly used in manufacturing, such as to produce aluminum. You might be familiar with this if you know about electrolysis. In order to break apart those strong bonds, we need to put in energy. But that oxygen is tightly bound into the minerals mentioned above. The Moon’s regolith is made up of approximately 45% oxygen. Meanwhile, the materials on the Moon’s surface is basically regolith in its original, untouched form. Earth’s soil is imbued with remarkable physical, chemical, and biological characteristics. The result is a matrix of minerals that were not present in the original rocks. It has been created by a vast array of organisms working on the soil’s parent material - regolith, derived from hard rock - over millions of years. Soil as we know it is pretty magical stuff that only occurs on Earth. Some people call the Moon’s surface layer lunar “soil,” but as a soil scientist, I’m hesitant to use this term. This material has resulted from the impacts of meteorites crashing into the lunar surface over countless millennia. On the Moon these minerals exist in a few different forms including hard rock, dust, gravel, and stones covering the surface. All of these minerals contain oxygen, but not in a form our lungs can access. Minerals such as silica, aluminum, and iron and magnesium oxides dominate the Moon’s landscape. And the Moon is mostly made of the same rocks you’ll find on Earth (although with a slightly greater amount of material that came from meteors). Oxygen can be found in many of the minerals in the ground around us. If we could extract oxygen from regolith, would it be enough to support human life on the Moon? The breadth of oxygen Instead, it’s trapped inside regolith - the layer of rock and fine dust that covers the Moon’s surface. That said, there is actually plenty of oxygen on the Moon.
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