Lunarpedia - User contributions [en]

Casting Titanium

2012-05-02T17:55:08Z

Dietzler:

Casting titanium is not so simple but it can be done. Refractory materials employed in casting like silica, magnesia, or alumina are attacked by titanium with great severity. Powder metallurgy has met with similar difficulties. Simple sand casting will not work. Induction skull melting furnaces with water cooled copper crucibles are used to melt and pour titanium. The necessary vacuum will be free on the Moon. The fact is that many cast titanium products are now available for about the same price as stainless steel. We must duplicate this achievement on the Moon even if it means upporting expensive furnaces and mold materials. Investment casting also called “lost wax” casting of titanium is done commercially. This requires ceramic molds made of yttria, zirconia and thoria with inorganic binders like silica and various organic binders and additives. We will need carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen to make organics and these will be costly to produce on the Moon but even more expensive to import. Yttria and thoria could eventually be extracted from KREEP and there are zircons in the regolith. Silica is plentiful enough.

==links==

http://www.ramcast.com/

http://www.keytometals.com/article124.htm

http://www.tisquaredtech.com/3/casting_titanium.html

[[Category:industrial production]]

User talk:Dietzler

2012-05-02T17:48:20Z

Dietzler: /* No individual ownership of articles on Lunarpedia */

Aluminum will be essential on the Moon. We need it for wires, cables, electric motor windings and possibly for vehicles. How to produce it though??? This warrants some discussion. Direct electrolysis in FFC cells to produce oxygen, silicon and calcium (also a good electrical conductor) as well as aluminum looks good. This works at lower temperatures than many other processes but it requires imported FFC cells with non-consumable tin oxide or calcium ruthenate electrodes and calcium chloride electrolyte. Maybe the cost of these imports is worth it? I don't think the Hall-Heroult process is viable on the Moon. Not only would we have to recycle carbon electrodes which to the best of my knowledge burn up in just a few week's time we'd need pitch to bind the carbon and a way to bake the electrodes....also cyrolite has a way of breaking down over time, releasing F vapors, etc. If we use the AlCl3 process the carbon electrodes won't burn up for years but we need LiCl and NaCl for flux....and we have to carbochlorinate the Al2O3 and recover the carbon by shifting it to CH4 and pyrolyzing at 900 C. to get carbon dust which we can use as is and recover hydrogen. This seems to require a lot of heat energy. And we need chlorine which is not plentiful on the Moon. Solar carbothermal reduction of alumina is appealing in its simplicity and it won't require any imported reagents. Carbon could be harvested with Mark 3 volatiles miners and recycled. We could make retorts out of lunar alumina bricks, possibly with some added imported zirconia, and silica for windows and use aluminum sheets or foils for reflectors. Very high temps. (2100-2300C) are involved. There's lots of work being done on solar carbothemic Al production and plenty on the web about this. Somehwere i read that if CH4 is used as the reductant the job can be done at only 1500 C. and the result is Al, CO and H2....It seems this method would be "cheap" given we can make everything on the Moon...but we might make parts of FFC cells too in order to reduce import costs!!! There's really no way to know what costs are gonna be without actual experiments on the Moon. Unless some real smart characters can model everything in computers!!! As for roasting anorthite at up to 2000 C. in solar furnaces to get CaAlO4 and directly electrolyzing that, I have doubts. I wrote about that because i thought that might be the most barbaric thing to do!!!! Perhaps CaAlO4 could be electrolyzed in FFC cells?? Whenever i start talking to engineers about refining regolith they always ask, "Why can't we just roast all that stuff at superhigh temps.?" Getting temps. of 6000 K with solar furnaces might be possible but what could contain such heat??? Pyrolysis of regolith has been experimented with and seems like the simplest most aggressive way to do the job...but the temps. involved make me wary. Until we have an International Lunar Research Park and some experimental data we just won't be able to predict financial costs...and companies want to know what the bottom line is.

==How could the heat be contained?==
For the highest temperature melts the container can be the same substance as the melt, just cooled on the outside. Such a container would typically be supported by the cooling coils and have a rather thick layer of material being melted to act as the structure of the crucible. The thickness of the material reduces the thermal flux and so reduces the cooling expense. The thickness is also necessary for strength, since materials near their melting points are weak. A disadvantage with such a thick container is that it usually must remain stationary rather than being tilted to pour. A dipper can be used to transfer material if needed. The dipper is insulated by the layer of material that solidifies on its surface as soon as it is dipped in, and is in contact with the melt only a short time. [[User:Farred|Farred]] 19:20, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

==More comments==
We have articles related to this discussion. There are [[Lunar Aluminium Production]] and [[FFC Cambridge Process]]. There is some trade off between using more imports to get things working quicker and making more things locally and taking life times to do it. Whatever we do there will need to be some soft landed exploration missions to get more ground truth and some process demonstration missions. Most of what needs demonstrating can be done on Earth in simulated lunar conditions, but getting good estimates of cost will require some on Luna demonstrations. There is some carbon on Luna, but a successful colony will seek imports. It will always be expensive.

By the way, thanks for your contributions and welcome aboard!
:[[User:Farred|Farred]] 21:23, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

==Lunar Carbon==
From: http://www.nasa-academy.org/soffen/travelgrant/gadja.pdf

We find that a mining machine that can go through six million tons of regolith per year and heat it up to 700 C. will obtain 109 tons of H2O, 201 tons of H2, 16.5 tons of N2, 56 tons of CO2, 63 tons of CO, 53 tons of CH4, 102 tons of He4 and 33 kg. of He3. That's 82 tons of carbon contained in CO2, CO and CH4. If 201 tons of H2 is combined with 1600 tons of O2 that's another 1800 tons of H2O. There is also evidence of carbon compounds in polar ices....as for the feasibility of getting that ice i can only wonder. It seems we can obtain some significant amounts of carbon but we will still need to recycle it. If lunar industry ever grows to the point at which millions of tons of metals are produced every year for a space based solar power satellite building project we will need more carbon and other elements like nitrogen. Not only will carbon be valuable for atmospheres, steel and industrial processes but it would help to have some industrial plastics and silicones.

==Carbide Versus Corundum on the Moon==
According to your figures above, carbon would be present in typical regolith at a concentration of about 14 parts per million. That does not qualify as an ore of carbon but we would be recovering it as a byproduct. Thank God it is there for the many uses for which it would be difficult to replace. Whether or not it would be worth while to import carbon from Ceres or Mars would depend upon many factors that I only guess at. The average composition of samples from different Apollo missions ranged between 17.4% and 10.3% aluminum oxide according to [http://www.permanent.com/lunar-geology-minerals.html PERMANENT] or 9.2 to 5.5 percent aluminum. So, for abrasives corundum ought to have a significant economic advantage over carbides.

Artificial corundum is made by melting and recrystallizing aluminum oxide. The broken bits are what is abrasive. Variations in the purity of the alumina result in variations in the micro hardness of the grit. Silica should be particularly excluded from artificial corundum but requirements are not so difficult as in producing artificial ruby for lasers. According to ''The Great Soviet Encyclopedia'', 3rd Edition (1970-1979) artificial corundum makes up roughly 80 percent of all abrasive production. See [http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Artificial+Corundum THE FREE DICTIONARY]. Corundum can have a hardness of 9 Mohs. So it should be sufficient for abrading cast basalt, iron and steel. [[User:Farred|Farred]] 04:13, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

==Comments==
Based on Apollo data there are 80ppm to 200ppm carbon in the regolith. The Mark 3 volatiles miner doesn't recover 100% of the carbon because it only heats the regolith to 700 C. to avoid sulfuric acid formation but this is hot enough to get most of the hydrogen and helium.

Corundum would certainly be a better choice for abrasives than carbides.

==No individual ownership of articles on Lunarpedia==
I see that you have added an article <nowiki>[[Sand casting]]</nowiki> to Lunarpedia. You identify yourself by name as the author at the start of the article. That is not the way wikis are set up to operate. Wikis are intended to be collaborative works in which the individual contributors are identified by their name and a record of their contribution in the history section but the article is attributed to the wiki itself not any particular author. The main page declares that all articles in the main namespace are released to the '''public domain'''. Articles are generally available for anyone to add to and improve as they see fit. If you want to be the sole author of an article, excluding others from editing it, then you should not post it on Lunarpedia. Posting links to a website where you do exclude others from editing is proper, if the website deals with moon settlement topics or technical topics related to moon settlement articles. I hope to avoid any misunderstanding. Talk pages, like this one, are reserved for identifying the individual contributors by name and discussing Lunarpedia. - [[User:Farred|Farred]] 09:49, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

==I stand corrected==
I removed my name from that article. I still have much to learn about posting on this Wiki.

Maraging Steel

2012-05-02T17:44:42Z

Dietzler:

Maraging steels are very strong and have ultra-low carbon contents (0.03%) and sometimes contain no carbon at all. They get their strength from intermetallic compounds rather than carbon. The main alloying element is 15% to 25% nickel. Other alloying elements added to produce intermetallic precipitates include cobalt, molybdenum, and titanium. Original development was carried out on 20% and 25% Ni steels to which small additions of Al, Ti, and Nb were made.<ref>http://www.steelguru.com/article/details/NTg=/Maraging_steel.html</ref>
Given the expected high cost of carbon on the Moon largely due to the fact that robots will have to mine millions of tons of regolith every year to produce tens of tons of carbon and life support systems will get "first dibs" on carbon supplies, carbonless maraging steels are worth considering. Nickel and cobalt are present in meteoric iron fines found all over the Moon. These particles contain from 5% to 10% nickel and about 0.2% cobalt.<ref>http://www.highfrontier.org/Archive/Jt/Koelle%20PILOT%20PRODUCTION%20at%20the%20MOONBASE%202015.pdf</ref> Since the meteoric fines are present at about 0.5% a robot mining a square kilometer to a depth of 10cm could produce 1000 tons of fines and 50 to 100 tons of nickel. That would be enough nickel to make 250 to 500 tons of 20% Ni maraging steel or 200 to 400 tons of 25% Ni steel. This could be alloyed with Al and/or Ti but Nb and Mo are too rare on the Moon and Co, though it can be extracted from meteoric fines is not very pleniful.
More research needs to be done on carbonless maraging steels using only lunar available elements like nickel, aluminum and titanium. Cost comparisons must be made for carbon-steel and maraging steel and that will probably require actual experience on the Moon. We know that volatiles mining for carbon will be time consuming and energy intensive. Producing nickel will reqire mining large areas of regolith too, but low intensity magnetic separators probably won't demand as much energy as roasting solar wind implanted volatiles will. Nickel can be extracted from the fines with CO gas and poassibly by electrostatic methods. There is also the possibility of obtaining carbon from polar ices. Presently, there is no way to predict how productive or unproductive polar ice mining will be.

Maraging Steel

2012-05-02T17:40:00Z

Dietzler: Created page with "Maraging steels are very strong and have ultra-low carbon contents (0.03%) and sometimes contain no carbon at all. They get their strength from intermetallic compounds rather th..."

Maraging steels are very strong and have ultra-low carbon contents (0.03%) and sometimes contain no carbon at all. They get their strength from intermetallic compounds rather than carbon. The main alloying element is 15% to 25% nickel. Other alloying elements added to produce intermetallic precipitates include cobalt, molybdenum, and titanium. Original development was carried out on 20% and 25% Ni steels to which small additions of Al, Ti, and Nb were made.<ref>http://www.steelguru.com/article/details/NTg=/Maraging_steel.html</ref>
Given the expected high cost of carbon on the Moon largely due to the fact that robots will have to mine millions of tons of regolith every year to produce tens of tons of carbon and life support systems will get "first dibs" on carbon supplies, carbonless maraging steels are worth considering. Nickel and cobalt are present in meteoric iron fines found all over the Moon. These particles contain from 5% to 10% nickel and about 0.2% cobalt. Since the meteoric fines are present at about 0.5% a robot mining a square kilometer to a depth of 10cm could produce 1000 tons of fines and 50 to 100 tons of nickel. That would be enough nickel to make 250 to 500 tons of 20% Ni maraging steel or 200 to 400 tons of 25% Ni steel. This could be alloyed with Al and/or Ti but Nb and Mo are too rare on the Moon and Co, though it can be extracted from meteoric fines is not very pleniful.
More research needs to be done on carbonless maraging steels using only lunar available elements like nickel, aluminum and titanium. Cost comparisons must be made for carbon-steel and maraging steel and that will probably require actual experience on the Moon. We know that volatiles mining for carbon will be time consuming and energy intensive. Producing nickel will reqire mining large areas of regolith too, but low intensity magnetic separators probably won't demand as much energy as roasting solar wind implanted volatiles will. Nickel can be extracted from the fines with CO gas and poassibly by electrostatic methods. There is also the possibility of obtaining carbon from polar ices. Presently, there is no way to predict how productive or unproductive polar ice mining will be.

User talk:Dietzler

2012-05-02T16:48:10Z

Dietzler: /* Carbide Versus Corundum on the Moon */

Sand Casting

2012-05-02T14:54:58Z

Dietzler:

Engineering details might seem dull or trivial, but
they can make or break us. There won't be any ISRU and
bootstrapping on the Moon without metal casting. Three
dimensional printers that use lasers or electron beams
(which require vacuum, free on Luna) to fuse powdered
metals, glass and/or ceramic into small parts that can fit
in the hand and medium size parts with dimensions of
one or two feet will be used to produce all sorts of parts
on the Moon. Barring the creation of giant 3D printers we
will need to cast large metal parts on the Moon like
vehicle chassis frame members, axles, wheels, struts, etc.
When we can we will use rolling mills and/or extruders to
make things, but we might want to cast up the rolling
mills and extruders with lunar materials rather than ship
these massive devices to the Moon!
Aluminum and magnesium are often sand-cast
but they might also be cast in plaster molds with plaster
obtained by sulfuric acid leaching of highland regolith.
Plaster, CaSO4, is also a cement setting time retardant
and Portland cement contains up to 5% of this compound
by weight. Iron, steel and iron alloy (e.g. iron-aluminides,
iron-silicon, iron-manganese, iron-nickel) casting is
going to require sand molds. Foundry sand, also called
green sand, is made of either silica or olivine sand, two
substances we have on the Moon, water that can be
obtained in various ways and rigorously recycled,
bentonite clay and sometimes pulverized coal (forget coal
on the Moon). We will have to do casting in pressurized
chambers with dehumidifiers to recover water vapor from
the drying sand mold and powerful cooling systems
because it will get very hot inside when working with
molten metals and interior pressure will increase as
temperature increases. Casting chambers will be built of
metal and concrete, not Kevlar!
Here's the detail I am hung up on; there is no
clay on the Moon because there was never any water for
the hydrological processes that produce clay to occur.
Clay is essential to bind the sand mold. We might be able
to synthesize clay on the Moon. At:
w w w.patentstorm.us/patents/6565643/description.htm l
we read that, "U.S. Pat. No. 3,803,026 describes a
process for preparing a clay-type material in which an
amorphous gel comprising silicon oxide, aluminum
oxide, and, e.g., magnesium oxide is subjected to a
high-temperature ageing step in an autoclave.
C.R. Acad. Sc. Paris 7 292 describes a process for
preparing, int. al., clays comprising aluminum, silicon,
and, e.g., magnesium by way of a co-precipitation
process." Silicon, aluminum, magnesium and their oxides
exist on the Moon. I suspect that it will be more practical
to synthesize clay on the Moon than upport it from Earth!
It is also possible to bind foundry sand with resin. At
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_molding we read:
""Shell molding, also known as shell-mold
casting, is an expendable mold casting process that uses
a resin covered sand to form the mold. As compared to
sand casting, this process has better dimensional
accuracy, a higher productivity rate, and lower labor
requirements. It is used for small to medium parts that
require high precision. Examples of shell-molded items
include gear housings, cylinder heads and connecting
rods. It is also used to make high-precision molding cores"
The Wiki article states that this is used for small
to medium sized parts so we might still need clay for
large part casting. Resin could be made in lunar labs and
we would need some way to recycle it possibly by
leaching unused resin out of spent molds with an organic
solvent and by extracting vaporized resin from air and
CO2 from burnt resin. Resin will contain rare lunar
elements like H, C and N, and we cannot afford to waste
these. If we cast in chambers with inert gas filled interiors
the resin won't burn to form CO2 and other gases.
If we can synthesize clay on the Moon,
and i suspect that we can and must, and do it cheaply,
then we could even work clay and fire it with electric
furnaces into pottery and other desirable items. That
would be a nice added benefit. An unconventional
approach to metal casting on the Moon might be the use
of microwave sintered regolith molds, but data is lacking.
This should be investigated.

[[Category:Industrial Production]]

Sand Casting

2012-05-02T00:28:47Z

Dietzler: Created page with "Casting Metal on the Moon By David Dietzler and posted by author. Engineering details might seem dull or trivial, but they can make or break us. There won't be any ISRU and boots..."

Casting Metal on the Moon
By David Dietzler and posted by author.
Engineering details might seem dull or trivial, but
they can make or break us. There won't be any ISRU and
bootstrapping on the Moon without metal casting. Three
dimensional printers that use lasers or electron beams
(which require vacuum, free on Luna) to fuse powdered
metals, glass and/or ceramic into small parts that can fit
in the hand and medium size parts with dimensions of
one or two feet will be used to produce all sorts of parts
on the Moon. Barring the creation of giant 3D printers we
will need to cast large metal parts on the Moon like
vehicle chassis frame members, axles, wheels, struts, etc.
When we can we will use rolling mills and/or extruders to
make things, but we might want to cast up the rolling
mills and extruders with lunar materials rather than ship
these massive devices to the Moon!
Aluminum and magnesium are often sand-cast
but they might also be cast in plaster molds with plaster
obtained by sulfuric acid leaching of highland regolith.
Plaster, CaSO4, is also a cement setting time retardant
and Portland cement contains up to 5% of this compound
by weight. Iron, steel and iron alloy (e.g. iron-aluminides,
iron-silicon, iron-manganese, iron-nickel) casting is
going to require sand molds. Foundry sand, also called
green sand, is made of either silica or olivine sand, two
substances we have on the Moon, water that can be
obtained in various ways and rigorously recycled,
bentonite clay and sometimes pulverized coal (forget coal
on the Moon). We will have to do casting in pressurized
chambers with dehumidifiers to recover water vapor from
the drying sand mold and powerful cooling systems
because it will get very hot inside when working with
molten metals and interior pressure will increase as
temperature increases. Casting chambers will be built of
metal and concrete, not Kevlar!
Here's the detail I am hung up on; there is no
clay on the Moon because there was never any water for
the hydrological processes that produce clay to occur.
Clay is essential to bind the sand mold. We might be able
to synthesize clay on the Moon. At:
w w w.patentstorm.us/patents/6565643/description.htm l
we read that, "U.S. Pat. No. 3,803,026 describes a
process for preparing a clay-type material in which an
amorphous gel comprising silicon oxide, aluminum
oxide, and, e.g., magnesium oxide is subjected to a
high-temperature ageing step in an autoclave.
C.R. Acad. Sc. Paris 7 292 describes a process for
preparing, int. al., clays comprising aluminum, silicon,
and, e.g., magnesium by way of a co-precipitation
process." Silicon, aluminum, magnesium and their oxides
exist on the Moon. I suspect that it will be more practical
to synthesize clay on the Moon than upport it from Earth!
It is also possible to bind foundry sand with resin. At
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_molding we read:
""Shell molding, also known as shell-mold
casting, is an expendable mold casting process that uses
a resin covered sand to form the mold. As compared to
sand casting, this process has better dimensional
accuracy, a higher productivity rate, and lower labor
requirements. It is used for small to medium parts that
require high precision. Examples of shell-molded items
include gear housings, cylinder heads and connecting
rods. It is also used to make high-precision molding cores"
The Wiki article states that this is used for small
to medium sized parts so we might still need clay for
large part casting. Resin could be made in lunar labs and
we would need some way to recycle it possibly by
leaching unused resin out of spent molds with an organic
solvent and by extracting vaporized resin from air and
CO2 from burnt resin. Resin will contain rare lunar
elements like H, C and N, and we cannot afford to waste
these. If we cast in chambers with inert gas filled interiors
the resin won't burn to form CO2 and other gases.
If we can synthesize clay on the Moon,
and i suspect that we can and must, and do it cheaply,
then we could even work clay and fire it with electric
furnaces into pottery and other desirable items. That
would be a nice added benefit. An unconventional
approach to metal casting on the Moon might be the use
of microwave sintered regolith molds, but data is lacking.
This should be investigated.

Crucible Steel

2012-05-02T00:13:04Z

Dietzler: Created page with "Iron can be produced on the Moon in a number of ways. Pure iron is not a particularly strong metal. It can be softer than aluminum. It will suffice for low stress parts but fo..."

Iron can be produced on the Moon in a number of ways. Pure iron is not a particularly strong metal. It can be softer than aluminum. It will suffice for low stress parts but for things like regolith mining machines we will want strong steel. On Earth, steel is made by burning excess carbon out of cast iron with oxygen. On the Moon, we will want to add carbon to iron to convert it to steel. It is possible to take iron rods or bars and pack them in carbon powder, or take plates of iron and sandwich carbon powder between them, and bring the iron to red heat in a furnace for several days while the carbon dissolves into the iron. This old and outdated method for making steel might find new life on the Moon. Life support systems will probably come first when it comes to lunar carbon supplies, but since steel commonly contains only 0.2% to 1.5% carbon the demand for carbon by steel makers will probably not be intolerable.

==links==

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucible_steel

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cementation_process

http://www.moonminer.org/11001.html

Casting Titanium

2012-05-01T23:47:05Z

Dietzler: Created page with "Casting titanium is not so simple but it can be done. Refractory materials employed in casting like silica, magnesia, or alumina are attacked by titanium with great severity. Po..."

User talk:Dietzler

2012-05-01T23:35:21Z

Dietzler:

Iron Beneficiation

2012-04-30T23:38:40Z

Dietzler: /* Magnetic separation */

Beneficiation is the process of increasing the concentration of a valuable component of an ore.

Native [[iron]] particles exist in [[lunar soil]] in fairly large quantities. They come from [[nickel-iron]] [[meteorites]], which become pulverized upon impact. These iron particles are tiny (fine grained) and well mixed into the fine dust of the lunar [[regolith]]. As they are in a metallic state and strongly magnetic, very little processing is needed to separate these metal particles from the [[regolith]].

==Magnetic separation==

Iron particles are highly sensitive to a magnetic field, and can be extracted by passing lunar regolith over a rotating magnetic drum. Any particles containing iron would stick to the drum and are scraped off the other side, while the remainder fall through. Only about 2% of the [[lunar soil]] would adhere to the drum. A very similar process is currently utilized on earth for extracting iron ore from sand dunes.

The power requirements of this mechanical separation are quite modest. A robotic unit not much bigger than a desk could conceivably roam the lunar surface extracting iron dust from the top 10 centimeters. At a concentration of 1/2% this would yield about a kilogram of iron per square meter or 1,000 tons per km2. This is a very high yield of usable material close to any lunar facility.

Using several passes with magnets of varying strength, the collected dust can be refined to 80% pure elemental [[nickel]]-[[iron]] with the remainder as various oxides of [[iron]]-[[titanium]]. This concentrate can then be subjected to [[Ilmenite Reduction#Hydrogen Reduction | hydrogen reduction]] to reduce the remaining iron oxides to metallic iron, and then [[Mond process | carbonyl extraction]] to separate the [[nickel]] and [[iron]] from any remaining substances. An extra step could be added to remove [[cobalt]], which would be present in significant quantities after the nickel and iron were removed.

A good discussion of magnetic and electrostatic beneficiation of iron particles can be found on pages 11 to 13 of this pdf: http://www.highfrontier.org/Archive/Jt/Koelle%20PILOT%20PRODUCTION%20at%20the%20MOONBASE%202015.pdf

==liquid phase separation==

The density of iron is much higher than the rocky dust. Therefore, it is possible that the different particles could be separated by mixing lunar regolith into a suitable liquid, then allowing the rocky dust (mostly [[Basalt]] or similar) to float and the iron particles to sink.

density of [[iron]] is 7.86 g/cm3

density of [[basalt]] is 2.9 g/cm3

Need a [[liquid]] which has a density in between, then the iron will [[sink]] and the basalt will [[float]].

===Possible liquids:===

====Room Temperature====

[[Bromine]] = 3.1028 g/cm3

====Cryogenic====

None identified to date.

====High Temperature====

(Basalt melts at about 1900 deg F)
(Iron melts at 2800 deg F)

*[[Iodine pentafluoride]] Density and phase: 3.250 g cm−3 liquid, Melting point 9.43°C (282.58 K)
*Molten [[Tin]] at 6.99 g·cm−3 (melting point 505.08 K (231.93 °C, 449.47 °F))
*Various Molten Salts

[[Category:Mining]]
[[Category:Chemistry]]
[[Category:ISRU]]
[[Category:Solids]]
[[Category:Business]]
[[Category:Liquids]]

Magma electrolysis

2012-04-30T23:23:17Z

Dietzler: /* Links */

'''Magma electrolysis''' is one proposed method of producing [[LUNOX | oxygen]] from lunar materials. In its simplest form, the method consists of melting the lunar regolith and passing an electric current through the melt, liberating oxygen at one electrode and [[Reduction | reducing]] the material to a lower oxidation state at the other. A ''flux'' material is typically used to reduce the melting temperature of lunar soil, however, the process temperatures for magma reduction are nevertheless typically in the range 1300-1400 C (ref: [http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/leag2005/pdf/2042.pdf Gimmett 2005])

Significant experimental work on the process has been done by Dr. Edward McCullough at Boeing. (Ref. McCullough and Mariz, "Lunar Oxygen Production via Magma Electrolysis", ''Proc. Space-90 Engineering, Construction, and Operations in Space'', Albuquerque, New Mexico, 22-26 April 1990, pp. 347-356)

==Links==
*[[LUNOX]]
*[[Reduction]]

{{Stub}}More information about magma electrolysis can be found at:Oxygen From the Lunar Soil by Molten Silicate Electrolysis by Russell O. Colson and Larry A. Haskin

http://www.nss.org/settlement/nasa/spaceresvol3/oflsmse1.htm

==External Links==

*[http://nss.org/settlement/nasa/spaceresvol3/plsoom1.htm lunar oxygen process sequence discussion from Knudson and Gibson (1989)] (note: a good summary of approaches, but somewhat out of date)
*[http://www.moonminer.com/Magma-process.html Magma electrolysis sequence proposed by David Dietzler]
*[http://www.magicdragon.com/ComputerFutures/SpacePublications/llox-footnoted.html LLOX automated production summary (1990)]
*[http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1991rnes.nasaS...7C Colson and Haskin paper on Magma electrolysis, 1991]

[[Category:Chemistry]]
[[Category:ISRU]]

User talk:Dietzler

2012-04-30T23:12:47Z

Dietzler: discussing lunar aluminum production