ELMORE - ELektrochemische Prozesse zur Gewinnung reiner Elemente aus MOndREgolith
Project Description:
For the exploration of the moon a significant infrastructure must be set up on the moon. Therefore, a vast amount of resources are necessary. The materials are needed for e.g. buildings and powerplants but also oxygen for the astronauts to breathe. Those materials and parts can be brought there from the earth. But this approach requires an enormous effort of expensive space transportation. Thus, it is necessary to utilize the resources available on the moon to cut costs.
A lot of the elements needed are contained in the surface material of the moon, called Regolith. Regolith is composed of oxides of silicon (Si), Iron (Fe), Aluminium (Al), Magnesium (Mg) and others. The precise composition depends on the location on the moon. To make the elements usable for e.g. machine parts the metals have to be purified. This process could be done on the moon as it is done currently on earth. But in that case, it would require a profuse quantity of additives from the earth.
Elmore aims to purify the elements with electrochemical processes without additives. In the first step, the Regolith is solved in ionic liquids and transformed into ions. Secondly, the ions are selectively electrochemically transformed back to pure elements. Therefore, the metals deposits at the cathode and the oxygen at the anode. Afterwards, both the pure metal and the oxygen can be used. Ionic liquids are salts that are liquid at room temperature.
This new method could not only be important for future space exploration but also the metal processing on the earth. The current process utilizes carbon to bond and to remove oxygen from the raw iron oxide. Thus, a great amount of carbon dioxide is created. Per ton of steel about 1.34 tons of carbon dioxide are emitted.
Elmore is a project of the Fraunhofer Institute for Surface Engineering and Thin Films (IST) and the Institute for Space Systems.
More information about the Fraunhofer Institute for Surface Engineering and Thin Films can be found on:
https://www.ist.fraunhofer.de/
Project term:
01.09.2019 bis 31.08.2022
Partners:
Fraunhofer Institut für Schicht- und Oberflächentechnik
This work is supported (support code 50WM1967) by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy on the basis of a decision by the German Bundestag.
Contact person:
Johannes Becker M.Sc.
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
+49 (0) 531 391 9972
