An international team of scientists, including a chemist from the University of Warwick, has proposed using magnetism to create oxygen for astronauts in space. The findings are based on new research on magnetic phase separation in microgravity.
How Oxygen Is Produced in Space
It is a complicated and costly process to keep astronauts breathing aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and other space vehicles. According to MDPI, The only system capable of producing oxygen for astronauts in a long-term manned spacecraft in a physicochemically regenerative manner is the electrolytic oxygen generation system (EOGS).
Interesting Engineering said there are four steps to produce and maintain oxygen in space - (1) reclaiming water from the space station using Water Reclamation System, (2) creating hydrogen gas and oxygen gas through electrolysis, (3) feeding the hydrogen gas into the Sabatier System, to convert it back to water using excess CO2, and (4) venting the by-products into space.
Expensive Oxygen Production in Space Through Electrolysis
According to lead author Alvaro Romero-Calvo, a recent Ph.D. graduate from the University of Colorado Boulder, oxygen is generated on the International Space Station (ISS) using an electrolytic cell that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen, but then those gases must be removed from the system.
A recent analysis by a NASA Ames researcher concluded that using the same architecture on a trip to Mars would result in such significant mass and reliability penalties that it would be ineffective.
Since the 1960s, efficient phase separation in reduced gravitational environments has been a barrier to human space exploration, according to Dr. Katharina Brinkert of the University of Warwick Department of Chemistry and the Center for Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM) in Germany. Since the oxygen for the crew is produced in water electrolyzer systems and must be separated from the electrode and liquid electrolyte, this phenomenon presents a unique challenge for the life support systems onboard spacecraft and the ISS. The root cause of this difficulty is buoyancy.
NASA currently uses centrifuges to force the gases out, but these machines are large and require a lot of mass, power, and upkeep. Meanwhile, the team has conducted experiments that show magnets can achieve similar results in some cases.
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Microgravity and Magnet to Produce Oxygen in Space
Engineers have not fully explored the use of diamagnetic forces in space applications due to gravity's difficulty in demonstrating the technology on Earth.
Brinkert and his team's experimental tests at a special drop tower facility through the Center for Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM) in Germany were successful. The facility, funded by the German Aerospace Center (DLR), helped simulate microgravity conditions.
The teams developed a method for detaching gas bubbles from electrode surfaces in microgravity environments generated by the Bremen Drop Tower for 9.2 seconds. This study shows for the first time that gas bubbles can be attracted to and repelled from a simple neodymium magnet in microgravity by immersing them in different types of aqueous solutions.
The findings could pave the way for scientists and engineers working on oxygen systems, as well as other space research involving liquid-to-gas phase changes.
These effects, according to Dr. Brinkert, have enormous implications for the future development of phase separation systems, such as long-term space missions, implying efficient oxygen. For example, hydrogen production in water (photo-)electrolyzer systems can be achieved even in the near absence of buoyant force.
According to Professor Hanspeter Schaub of the University of Colorado Boulder, using this amazing drop tower in Germany provided concrete proof that this concept will function in the zero-g space environment after years of analytical and computational research.
The study titled Magnetic phase separation in microgravity was published in Nature.
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