'Magic' moon tech: Chinese scientists find way to extract water, CO2, oxygen from lunar soil

If deployed at scale, such technology could allow future human explorers to harness lunar resources to meet survival needs, thereby drastically reducing logistical challenges and costs of transporting essential resources from Earth.

A new technology developed by Chinese scientists could significantly improve human survivability on the moon, potentially paving the way for a new era of lunar exploration.

According to a report by Interesting Engineering, scientists from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, managed to extract water from lunar soil and convert the same to carbon dioxide and oxygen and other chemicals for fuel.

While there existed techniques for extracting water from lunar soil, these typically required multiple energy-intensive steps and crucially, did not break down carbon dioxide for fuel and other uses.

The most notable achievement of this experiment, therefore, was the success of an integrated approach such as this.

The technology developed by the scientists not only extracts water from lunar soil, but also break down the carbon dioxide exhaled by astronauts into carbon monoxide and hydrogen, which can be used as fuel, and oxygen, which can be breathed by the astronauts themselves.

Commenting on the successful experiment, Lu Wang, one of the study's authors, said, "We never fully imagined the ‘magic’ that the lunar soil possessed."

“The one-step integration of lunar H2O extraction and photothermal CO2 catalysis could enhance energy utilization efficiency and decrease the cost and complexity of infrastructure development,” he added.

The success of the method could prove to be crucial for future lunar explorations: recent analysis of lunar soil brought back by China's Chang'e-5 mission does indicate the presence of water on the surface.

If deployed at scale, technology such as the one developed by Lu and co could allow future human explorers to harness lunar resources to meet survival needs, thereby drastically reducing logistical challenges and costs of transporting essential resources from Earth.

That said, there still exist challenges.

For one, lunar soil in its natural environment does not have a uniform composition, and inconsistent properties in said soil may pose challenges to the actual deployment of the technology.

Secondly, it remains to be seen whether carbon dioxide exhaled by astronauts will be enough to generate the fuel and oxygen needed for survival.

Third, technological hurdles reman: the current catalytic performance of the technology is insufficient to deploy at scale and support life in environments beyond Earth.

"Overcoming these technical hurdles and significant associated costs in development, deployment, and operation will be crucial to realizing sustainable lunar water utilization and space exploration," the study authors wrote in the journal Joule.