In-situ resource utilisation manufacturing of optically transparent glass from lunar regolith simulant

Abstract

International space agencies are aiming to establish permanent outposts on the lunar surface. For that purpose, new technologies and equipment are being developed which will enable and augment these mission goals. To increase the duration of a long-term planetary mission and to expand mission capabilities, the ability to manufacture transparent glass in-situ could be an important enabler on the lunar surface. Results presented in this work show that it is feasible to use different lunar regolith simulants to manufacture optically transparent glass by magnetically beneficiating regolith prior to processing. Beneficiated regolith simulant was melted, cast into glass nuggets which were then ground, lapped and polished into glass slides of 1mm thickness. The glass slides' surface roughness and geometry were measured, prior to optical analysis, which showed an average transmission of about 80 % of light in the wavelength range from 250 to 1250 nm. A comparable reference glass sample performed only about 9 % (absolute) better on average. From these results it seems viable to manufacture transparent glass from actual lunar regolith on the lunar surface as well, however, differences in regolith simulant and actual regolith still need to be fully explored -Regolith may be available on the lunar surface in unlimited quantities and therefore open up new strategic possibilities.

Material aspects of sintering of EAC-1A lunar regolith simulant

“…This, however, does not necessarily imply a significant difference between the iron contents of the olivine in the two studies, as forsterite and fayalite form a complete solid solution [(Mg,Fe) 2 SiO 4 ] and their iron contents were not determined in the two studies. A major difference between the present work and the study of Schleppi et al 18 is that in their XRD analysis a considerable amount of glass (~ 14%) was found in EAC-1A, while in our study the material was found to be virtually fully crystalline. This latter result is consistent with our DSC measurement (Fig.…”

“…The minor or trace amount of ilmenite as well as the unidentified clay/zeolite minerals were not included in the analysis. The results of the RQPA are compared with the results of Schleppi et al 18 for EAC-1A in Table 1 and will be further discussed below.…”

Chlorella Vulgaris Photobioreactor for Oxygen and Food Production on a Moon Base—Potential and Challenges

“…A PBR requires a high amount of water, as a medium support for the algae inside the reactor chamber. If the water could be obtained directly on the Moon surface (Honniball et al, 2021), or even the materials to build the reactor chamber (Schleppi et al, 2021), a PBR ESM would be reduce and thus it would be favourable in even shorter mission durations.…”