A Concept of Producing Aluminum In-Situ on the Moon through Molten Salt Electrolysis

This paper presents a concept of producing aluminum in-situ on the lunar surface, namely, the Lunar In-Situ Aluminum Production through Molten Salt Electrolysis (LISAP-MSE) method developed at Missouri University of Science and Technology. This paper aims to demonstrate the use of electro-deoxidation to reduce aluminum oxide (i.e., alumina) into aluminum and oxygen gas via electrolysis in a molten salt bath for the production of aluminum on the Moon. It is shown that with a steady supply of hydrogen chloride, this in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) method could supply several necessary materials consumed in the electro-deoxidation process except hydrogen chloride to produce aluminum metal, oxygen, water, and silica from anorthite found in lunar highland regions. In this paper, the Missouri S&T team thermally and chemically reduce anorthite, an aluminum rich mineral commonly found in the lunar highlands, and test two electrolytic cells that were produced “in house." The results show that acid leaching and thermal decomposition were successful. However, more work needs to be done to effectively demonstrate the validity of electro-deoxidation.