Oxygen production from lunar regolith by microwave heating

It has been nearly 50 years since humans first set foot on the Moon. However, there has been no return since the Apollo missions because of the expense. One limiting factor is the cost of transport; every kg of material transported to the Moon requires 600 kg of propellant. In-Situ Resource Utilisation (ISRU) is the collection, processing and storage of indigenous materials instead of transporting material from Earth to reduce overall mission cost and risk (1). Oxygen is a particularly important resource as it is essential for life-support and can be used as a propellant.

the project has two features of lunar regolith lunar soil, first, oxygen in the form of water can be extracted from the common lunar mineral limenite, by reduction with hydrogen at 900 degrees, 2, second, lunar regolith is efficiently heated by microwaves 3, Working with the Spacecraft instrument Development team at the Open University the successful candidate will be using the vacuum microwave facility to heat lunar simulants to release volaties, investigating the coupling of microwave energy to the sample.