Please Note: "The preliminary results already obtained for plasma CO dissociation in DC and MW discharges support the estimation that an optimized system may produce oxygen at a rate of 14 g/h using a 6 kg plasma reactor, amounting to 2.3 g of oxygen produced per hour per kg of equipment sent to Mars.49,50
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These values are about six times larger than obtained by the current operation of MOXIE and are discussed in Sec. V."
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Inside mind-blowing plan to create oxygen on Mars with strange 'plasma reactors'
A BOLD plan to create oxygen on Mars using plasma reactors has been tested in a laboratory.
Developing systems for making the resources that sustain life using what is available off-world is a key component of making deep space exploration possible.
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The next decade of space exploration is loaded with ambitious projects that will dramatically increase humans' presence in the solar system.
But on Mars, the air is more than 96% carbon dioxide and less than 1% oxygen.
If humans are to make a lasting footprint on the red planet, we will need an efficient system for making oxygen to stay alive.
An international team of researchers have developed an approach for creating oxygen on Mars by using plasma reactors detailed in a study published in the Journal of Applied Physics.
The prototype uses a charged beam of electrons to split carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide and oxygen plasmas.
In lab conditions meant to simulate the Martian environment, the plasma reactor produce about 14 grams of oxygen per hour.
It's not the only method in development for creating breathable air on Mars.
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Last year, NASA achieved something science fiction writers have been dreaming about for decades: It created oxygen on Mars. A microwave-size device attached to the agency’s Perseverance rover converted carbon dioxide into 10 minutes of breathable oxygen. Now, physicists say they’ve come up with a way to use electron beams in a plasma reactor to create far more oxygen, potentially in a smaller package.
The technique might someday not just help astronauts breathe on the Red Planet, but could also serve as a way to create fuel and fertilizer, says Michael Hecht, an experimental scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But Hecht, who leads the oxygenmaking rover instrument, says the new approach still has a number of challenges to overcome before it can hitch a ride to our solar neighbor.
When Perseverance landed in Jezero crater in 2020, it carried the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE). The device draws in martian air, which is 95% carbon dioxide. By pumping a current between two oppositely charged electrodes in an electrochemical cell, MOXIE can split the carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide and oxygen ions. The oxygen ions then combine with each other to produce oxygen gas.
The experiment has been a successful proof of concept. But to work, MOXIE needs to pressurize and heat martian air—requiring extra parts that consume energy and make it bulky.
Vasco Guerra, a physicist at the University of Lisbon, thought a plasma reactor might be a better approach. A beam of electrons, accelerated to a specific energy level, can split carbon dioxide into its component ions, or plasma, just like MOXIE.
Moreover, a plasma reactor would be well-suited to the martian atmosphere, which is about 100 times thinner than Earth’s. Creating and accelerating a beam of electrons in the thin air is much easier, Guerra says. “There is an ideal pressure for plasma operation,” he says. “Mars has precisely this correct pressure.”
In the lab, he and his colleagues pumped air designed to match the pressure and composition of Mars into metal tubes. Unlike MOXIE, they didn’t need to compress or heat the air. Yet, by firing an electron beam into the reaction chamber, they were able to convert about 30% of the air into oxygen. They estimate that the device could create about 14 grams of oxygen per hour: enough to support 28 minutes of breathing, the team reports today in the Journal of Applied Physics.
Guerra’s team still needs to solve some practical problems. . ."
- Plasmas for in situ resource utilization on Mars: Fuels, life support, and agriculture
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NASA has MOXIE, but rivals reckon they can do better for oxygen on Mars
Last year, NASA produced oxygen on Mars. Now, scientists experimenting here on Earth may have found a much more efficient method of doing so for future missions. The resulting equipment could be used to produce the necessary materials for human colonization, too.
Writing in the Journal of Applied Physics, an international team of boffins led by University of Lisbon physicist Vasco Guerra say they've managed to test a design that can do the same thing NASA's Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) does – but without the need for intense heat and pressure.
Not only does their design improve on MOXIE's ability to harvest breathable oxygen, it can also be used to create fuels, carbon-based fertilizers, and animal feed. It can also synthesize a variety of organic molecules, the researchers said.
Move over MOXIE?
MOXIE produced oxygen on Mars in a toaster-sized unit, but it required very specific conditions to do so: it had to heat the Martian air to 800°C (1,472°F) and re-pressurize it to one Earth atmosphere, making it far denser than the pressure on the Red Planet.
Guerra's team, on the other hand, proposes using non-thermal plasma and specialized conducting membranes. Combined, the design forms a plasma reactor that can operate directly in Martian conditions without the need for heat or re-pressurization. According to the paper, Mars's atmospheric pressure is actually "ideal for plasmaignition."
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In the paper, the researchers detail the two separate oxygen-generating experiments they carried out: the first using DC glow discharge plasma super chilled to Martian temperatures, and a second that used microwave discharges operating in a simulated Martian atmosphere.
The paper describes the results as "very encouraging considering that the plasma setup used was designed for fundamental research and is far from suited to the development of a prototype." The DC experiment reportedly reached CO2 dissociation (the separation of carbon and oxygen) rates as high as 30 percent, while the MW experiment reached a 35 percent conversion rate.
Based on their preliminary results, the team sketched out what an optimized system could produce and arrived at 14 grams of oxygen an hour in a plasma reactor weighing 6 kilograms – 2.3 grams of oxygen per kilogram of equipment.
For comparison, NASA's MOXIE unit weighs 17.7 kilograms and can top out at 10 grams of oxygen an hour, the space agency said.
Not so fast
The fact that MOXIE has actually made oxygen on Mars weighs heavily in its favor, as do some major drawbacks that the experimenters concede, as MOXIE leader and MIT experimental scientist Michael Hecht reiterated to Science.
The membrane used in Guerra's experiment, known as a mixed ionic-electronic conduction (MIEC) membrane, is developmentally at its "very first steps" in being coupled with plasma, the paper notes. Additionally, the researchers list "stability in CO2 and the possibility of back reactions" that can lessen the membrane's effectiveness as challenges to MIEC use. That, we presume, are challenges to overcome to make a practical device.
Hecht told Science that energy requirements and oxygen
storage needs could make Guerra's device bulkier than MOXIE, defeating
much of its benefit. "There's nothing wrong with the plasma technique
other than it's a lot less mature," Hecht said, adding that a cash
infusion from a space agency could make the tech mature enough to take
to Mars.
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