Newswise – The Moon’s recent discovery of energy resources such as water ice has refocused interest on its potential as a permanent hub for space exploration. NASA has also announced the Artemis mission, which aims for a long-term human presence on the lunar surface. However, infrastructure expansion, such as lunar base construction, plays an important role.
Nevertheless, transporting construction materials from Earth to the lunar surface via landers incurs a significant cost of USD 1.2 million per kilogram. Weight translates directly into cost, making it nearly impossible to transport construction materials from Earth to the Moon.
To solve this problem, the Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT, President Kim, Byung-suk) has developed technology to produce building materials using in-situ resources from the Moon.
The most readily available in-situ resource on the Moon is lunar regolith, which is the soil of the Moon’s surface. Use of lunar regolith could result in cost savings. Composed of fine particles, lunar regolith can be sintered through heat. However, in space environments, energy efficiency considerations for heat application are important. And microwaves are particularly beneficial in terms of energy efficiency.
The research team (Dr. Jangguyen, Lee, Dr. Young-jae, Kim, Dr. Hyunwoo, Jin) led by Dr. Hyo-song, Shin in the Future and Smart Construction Research Division of KICT demonstrated the use of microwave sintering to make blocks. Used. By heating and compressing lunar regolith simulant.
When using microwaves to heat lunar regolith, localized hot and cold spots can form. These spots lead to local thermal runaway, which hinders uniform heating and sintering. To address this, a stepped heating program with specific temperatures and residence times was established. Additionally, lunar regolith contains volatile substances, including water. Heating these unstable materials can cause internal cracks during sintering. The research team minimized crack formation by using lunar regolith simulant preheated under vacuum conditions at 250 degrees Celsius.
To assess the integrity of the sinter blocks intended for construction material, the produced blocks were core-drilled at specific locations. The average density, porosity and compressive strength of the core-drilled samples were about 2.11 g/cm³, 29.23% and 13.66 MPa, respectively. The corresponding standard deviations were 0.03, 1.01, and 1.76, confirming the homogeneity of the sintered blocks.
KICT has secured the technology for producing construction materials using lunar regolith. The plan is to validate this technology in the space environment. By validating this under space conditions, we can better address the growing demand for space manufacturing technology.
“Many previous space fabrication studies involving microwave sintering techniques have resulted in small or heterogeneous sintered bodies,” said Dr. Shin. He also expressed plans to use this technology for various infrastructure construction needs on the lunar surface in the future.
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Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building TechnologyA government funded research institute with extensive research experience of 41 years, it is at the forefront of solving national issues that are directly related to the quality of life of the people.,
The research for this work was carried out under the KICT Research Program (Project Nos. 20230081-001 and 20240184-001, Development of Environmental Simulator and Advanced Construction Technologies on TRL6 in Extreme Conditions) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT. An article explaining the results of this research was published in the latest issue of the Journal of Building Engineering, a renowned international journal in the civil engineering field (IF:6.4).
