Indian-origin scientist-led US team finds new system to extract oxygen from Mars's salty water

 

A US team led by an Indian-origin scientist has developed a new system that extracts oxygen from Mars' salty water.

Anew system that can extract oxygen and hydrogen fuel from the salty water on Mars has been developed by a team in the US, led by an Indian-origin scientist.

According to a report in Edexlive, the new finding by the team, led by Vijay Ramani, a professor at the Washington University in the US, has the potential to change the logistics of future mission to Mars and beyond.

How does the new system work?

As per the report, the researchers noted that Mars is very cold, and water that is not frozen is almost certainly full of salt from the Martian soil, which lowers its freezing temperature. Using the existing method of electricity to break the briny water down into oxygen and hydrogen fuel requires removing the salt, which is a cumbersome and a costly endeavour in a harsh, dangerous martian environment, they said.

The team examined the new system in a simulated Martian atmosphere at minus 36 degrees Celsius. "Our Martian brine electrolyser radically changes the logistical calculus of missions to Mars and beyond. This technology is equally useful on Earth where it opens up the oceans as a viable oxygen and fuel source," the report quoted Ramani as saying. In 2008, Nasa's Phoenix Mars Lander "touched and tasted" Martian water, vapours from melted ice dug up by the lander.

Oxygen, fuel needed to live on Mars

Since then, the European Space Agency's Mars Express has discovered several underground ponds of water which remain in a liquid state thanks to the presence of magnesium perchlorate salt. In the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the researchers noted that in order to live - even temporarily - on Mars, not to mention to return to Earth, astronauts will need to manufacture some of the necessities, including water and fuel, on the Red Planet, the report said.

New system better than Nasa's

Nasa's Perseverance rover that is en-route to Mars will be producing oxygen only, from the carbon dioxide in the air. It will be using the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE). The system developed in Ramani's lab can produce 25 times more oxygen than Nasa's rover using the same amount of power, said the researchers, adding it also produces hydrogen, which could be used to fuel astronauts' trip home.

"Our novel brine electrolyser incorporates a lead ruthenate pyrochlore anode developed by our team in conjunction with a platinum on carbon cathode" Ramani said. "These carefully designed components coupled with the optimal use of traditional electrochemical engineering principles has yielded this high performance," the report quoted Ramani as saying. The careful design and unique anode allow the system to function without the need for heating or purifying the water source, the researchers said.

"Paradoxically, the dissolved perchlorate in the water, so-called impurities, actually help in an environment like that of Mars," Edexlive quoted Shrihari Sankarasubramanian, a research scientist in Ramani's group as saying. "They prevent the water from freezing and also improve the performance of the electrolyser system by lowering the electrical resistance," said Sankarasubramanian who is also the joint first author of the research paper on the study.

New system better than water electrolysers

Water electrolysers typically use highly purified, deionized water, which adds to the cost of the system, according to the researchers. A system that can work with "sub-optimal" or salty water, such as the technology demonstrated by the team, can significantly enhance the economic value proposition of water electrolysers everywhere, even on the Earth, they said.

"Having demonstrated these electrolysers under demanding Martian conditions, we intend to also deploy them under much milder conditions on Earth to utilize brackish or salt water feeds to produce hydrogen and oxygen, for example through seawater electrolysis," the report quoted Pralay Gayen, a postdoctoral research associate in Ramani's group as saying. He is also a joint first author on the study.

Such applications could be useful in the defence realm, creating oxygen on demand in submarines, for example, said the researchers, adding it could also provide oxygen as we explore uncharted environments in the deep sea.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chinese spacecraft returns to Earth carrying moon rocks

  BEIJING: A Chinese lunar spacecraft capsule has returned to  Earth  with the first fresh samples of rock and  debris   from the moon in more than 40 years. The capsule of the Chang'e 5 probe landed in  the Siziwang district  of  the Inner Mongolia region , state media reported shortly after 2:00 a.m. on Thursday (1800 GMT). It had earlier separated from its  orbiter module  and performed a bounce off the Earth's atmosphere to reduce its speed before passing through and floating down on parachutes. Two of the Change 5's four modules set down on the moon on Dec. 1 and collected about 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of samples by scooping them from the surface, and by drilling 2 meters (about 6 feet) into the moon's crust. The samples were deposited in a sealed container that was carried back to the return module by an ascent vehicle. The successful mission was the latest breakthrough for China's increasingly ambitious space program.
Read more

What Happens if Dark Matter Goes Missing? NASA's Hubble Has the Answer

Dark matter makes up for the larger part of the universe and it basically refers to particles that do not absorb, reflect, or emit light. This is also why they cannot be detected by observing electromagnetic radiation. We divide the particles in the universe to be either visible matter or dark matter. But what if the dark matter goes missing? No matter how weird this sounds but in 2018, scientists were left baffled when a neighbouring galaxy had no dark matter. The official Instagram handle of Hubble telescope shared the story on the platform recently describing how data from Hubble solved the mystery. It is understood that dark matter is a crucial component for the evolution of galaxies but it was simply not there in the galaxy NGC 1052-DF4. A year later, another galaxy that misses dark matter was discovered, called the NGC 1052-DF4 and the scientists were left more puzzled than ever. Now, data collected by the Hubble telescope has revealed why the dark matter was missing. Mireia Mont...
Read more