Future Martians could make oxygen from plasma
An international team of researchers discovered a way with plasma to produce and separate oxygen within the Martian environment. It’s an adjacent approach to NASA’s Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment, and it may deliver high rates of molecule production per kg.
Producing oxygen on Mars has two giant hurdles according to Vasco Guerra, of the University of Lisbon.
“First, the decomposition of carbon dioxide molecules to extract oxygen. It’s a very difficult molecule to break,” said Vasco Guerra. “Second, the separation of the produced oxygen from a gas mixture that also contains, for example, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. We’re looking at these two steps in a holistic way to solve both challenges at the same time. This is where plasmas can help.”
The full abstract is available at the Journal of Applied Physics.
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