High Purity Oxygen Separation from a Pyrolysis Gas Mixture by Rapid Solid Oxide Ion Transport

With the Artemis program, NASA currently plans to land the first woman and next man on the moon by 2025, using innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before. The need for oxygen extraction from lunar regolith has been identified by the STMD (Space Technology Mission Directorate). Successful oxygen extraction from the abundant regolith resources would enable extended astronauts stays and repeated/further travels at substantially lower costs. Such a technology, if successful, is expected to benefit growing aerospace activities from both government agencies and the private sector. The A-Terras solid state ion transport vacuum pyrolysis technology is fully renewable-energy based, which empowers rapid production of 99%+ high purity oxygen and metals from the lunar regolith. A-Terra now shifts to Phase II where a bench scale oxygen extraction apparatus will be constructed based on their successful Phase I outcomes. The Phase II system will have the same basic components as the Phase I model, however, it will be tactically redesigned and upgraded to produce the oxygen at a rate of 100 kg/year or higher, assuming approximately 180 days of sun light availability on the moon and no battery utilization is considered for supplemental night operations. The proposed approach addresses the key technical challenges associated with the existing vacuum pyrolysis as follows: 1.         The problem with abrasive regolith grains moving in and out of the reaction chamber is minimized by consuming all or the majority of the regolith in the reaction chamber. 2.         The oxygen separation problem from the complex volatile mixture is mitigated by selectively removing the oxygen by the solid oxide electrolyte. Oxygen separation is self-driven, no external energy is required. The process also generates electrical energy while high purity oxygen is collected. (2.4 GJ/t oxygen) 3.         The vessel pressure buildup problem by pyrolysis gas evolution is addressed by continuous oxygen removal through the electrolyte. 4.         The monoatomic oxygen formation issue is resolved by removing it from the reaction chamber and releasing it to the collection chamber as diatomic oxygen.   Oxygen separation using a solid oxide electrolyte for vacuum pyrolysis has never been reported in the literature and U.S. patents. The technical objectives of the Phase II project are: To empirically validate the scalability of the proposed oxygen ion transport approach by constructing a scale-up unit based on the Phase I outcome, which is capable of producing high purity oxygen from a lunar simulant at a rate required for Phase II (100 kg oxygen/year) or higher. To provide understanding of oxygen production and separation behavior during the ion transport vacuum pyrolysis as influenced by scaling, process variables, and material choices, which will guide designing of larger units for Phase III (1 t oxygen/year) and a full scale (10 t oxygen/year). Deliverables A demonstration unit required for Phase II is 1/10 of the Phase III pilot (1 t oxygen/year) or 1/100 of a full scale unit (10 t oxygen/year). To effectively accomplish these goals, the following will be delivered at the end of the Phase II project: A bench scale unit of the oxygen ion transport vacuum pyrolysis technique that produces oxygen at least at a rate of 100 kg/year (assuming appropriately 180 days of sunlight availability on the moon annually). A dataset of process variables of the bench scale ion transport oxygen production unit with respect to behavior of oxygen production, which will be used in designing and constructing a pilot in Phase III that generates at least 1,000 kg of oxygen per year (180 days of sun availability).

The proposed technology is applicable to NASA’s lunar and planetary explorations where oxygen supplies are critical for life support and propellant needs to enable extended astronauts stays and repeated/further travels from the moon (Artemis program). The target markets for the proposed technology would be aerospace (private industries) and resource industries (mining, suppliers, utilization, smelting, etc.). The proposed technology is renewable energy based and expected to ‘cleanly’ produce high purity metals such as silicon as byproduct at competitive costs.

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