Producing oxygen and fertilizer with the Martian atmosphere by using microwave plasma

The potential of microwave (MW) plasma-based in-situ utilisation of the Martian atmosphere is explored with focus on the novel possibility of fixing N2, for fertiliser production.Conversion in a simulant plasma (i.e., 96/2/2 % CO2/N2/Ar), performed under energy conditions similar to the Mars oxygen in-situ experiment (MOXIE) currently on-board NASA's Perseverance rover, demonstrates that O/O2 formed through CO2 dissociation facilitates the fixation of the N2 fraction via oxidation to NOx.Promising production rates for O2, CO and NOx of 47.0, 76.1 and 1.25 g/h, respectively, are recorded with corresponding energy costs of 0.021, 0.013 and 0.79 kWh/g.Notably, O2 production rates are ~30 times higher than those demonstrated by MOXIE, while the NOx production rate represents a ~7% fixation of the N2 fraction present in the Martian atmosphere.MW plasmabased conversion therefore shows great potential as an in-situ resource utilisation (ISRU) technology on Mars, simultaneously fixing N2 and producing O2.