Scientists have developed a new technology that extracts water from Moon soil, offering a potential lifeline for future lunar explorers.
The findings, published in the journal Joule, could help reduce the enormous costs of shipping water from Earth, which currently stands at $22,000 per litre ($83,000 per gallon).
If successfully scaled, the technology could be critical to support long-term human missions to the Moon and beyond.
Using samples returned by China’s Chang’E-5 mission in 2020, researchers extracted water from lunar material and demonstrated that it can be used in tandem with carbon dioxide to produce essential resources. These include oxygen for astronauts to breathe and hydrogen-based chemicals that could be turned into rocket fuel.
“We never fully imagined the ‘magic’ that the lunar soil possessed,” Prof Lu Wang, one of the study’s authors and a researcher at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, said in a statement.
“The biggest surprise for us was the tangible success of this integrated approach. The one-step integration of lunar H2O extraction and photothermal CO2 catalysis could enhance energy utilisation efficiency and decrease the cost and complexity of infrastructure development.”
The technology uses a photothermal approach – converting sunlight into heat – to drive both the water extraction along with chemical conversion processes.
In lab tests, the team used real lunar soil from Chang’E-5 alongside simulated samples, exposing them to CO₂ and concentrated light in a batch reactor. The CO₂ they used for the conversion step could be easily obtained on the Moon, the authors said, from the exhalation of astronauts.
Previous methods for extracting water from Moon dust have involved multiple, energy-hungry steps, with no direct link to producing other vital resources. This integrated method offers a more efficient path forward, but the researchers acknowledge that significant challenges remain.
The Moon’s extreme temperature swings, high radiation levels and inconsistent soil composition all complicate efforts to scale up the technology. The amount of CO₂ produced by astronauts as they breathe may also fall short of what’s needed for full resource recycling, and the catalytic process isn’t yet efficient enough to sustain life independently.
Still, the advance marks a promising step towards making lunar living more feasible. With growing international interest in establishing a long-term human presence on the Moon – and using it as a launchpad for deeper space missions – the ability to tap into local water sources could prove crucial.
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