Purification of Lunar Cold-trapped Volatiles - FY18

This work involves a cascade of task-specific organic salt acids, known as Ionic Liquids (ILs). The volatiles will flow through four mists of IL's that will each grab a specific volatile (CO, H2S, NH3, and SO2 known to exist in PSR's from the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission). Subsequent processing of each IL will allow the separated gases to be obtained for use. The target outcomes of the proposed work are 1) hardware that can separate PSR volatile species, and 2) four task specific ILs that can be used with the same mixture of gases, each IL designed to extract a different volatile species from the mixed gas.

Separating volatiles extracted from the Permanently Shadowed Regions (PSRs) of the Moon could be very enabling for in-situ utilization for propulsion, life support, and other necessary systems for sustainable crewed missions.

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