In situ Recovery of Oxygen and High Purity, Single Element Metals from Regolith using Task Specific Ionic Liquid Facilitated Electrochemical Solvent Extraction

U.S. Space Exploration Policy specifies the critical importance of establishing an outpost on the Moon to provide the foundation for human missions beyond cislunar space. However, launching every spare part and system required for long-duration deep space missions is cost prohibitive. To improve safety and reduce risk/cost, the key to any sustainable presence in space is the ability to utilize in situ resources for onsite manufacture and replacement of consumables on demand. Maximum launch mass advantage will be achieved when in situ materials are used. Thus, a development essential to sustained Lunar occupancy is the capability to extract metals, oxygen, and water from regolith. Molten oxide electrolysis (MOE) has previously been studied for regolith resource extraction but requires temperatures between 1400°C and 2000°C. High energy input requirements, safety concerns, and material compatibility problems result. An alternative to MOE leverages acidic ionic liquids (ILs): organic salts which are molten at room temperature and whose properties, such as species solubility, are determined by their tunable molecular structure. Properly designed ILs can dissolve the highly stable metal oxides that compose Lunar regolith at temperatures below 200°C. The solution can be processed electrochemically to claim metals and oxygen. This low TRL, regenerable process has been demonstrated in the laboratory for Fe2O3. However, current IL/acid combinations cannot fully dissolve titanium and aluminum oxides or even partially dissolve silicon oxides. More work is also required to refine the electrochemical process for recovery of high purity, single element, metal feedstock. This proposed research will develop a breadboard electrochemical process that uses target-metal electrodes and acidic ILs to selectively extract high purity, single element metals from regolith simulant. Additionally, computational chemistry and experimentation will be used to identify task specific ILs with functional groups targeted at improved performance dissolving titanium, aluminum, and silicon oxides.

U.S. Space Exploration Policy specifies the critical importance of establishing an outpost on the Moon to provide the foundation for human missions beyond cislunar space. However, launching every spare part and system required for long-duration deep space missions is cost prohibitive. To improve safety and reduce risk/cost, the key to any sustainable presence in space is the ability to utilize in situ resources for onsite manufacture and replacement of consumables on demand. Maximum launch mass advantage will be achieved when in situ materials are used. Thus, a development essential to sustained Lunar occupancy is the capability to extract metals, oxygen, and water from regolith.

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