A recent scientific study suggests using magnetism to produce oxygen in space for astronauts, improving this process.
An international team of researchers, including the University of Warwick in the UK, the University of Colorado Boulder in the US, and the Free University of Berlin in Germany, may have devised a better way to produce oxygen in space, using magnetism.
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The result of the research was published in the journal npj Microgravity, and suggests a solution to the complex process of keeping astronauts in spacecraft such as the International Space Station, which could aid in future plans for missions to the Moon and Mars.
The lead author of the research, a recent Ph.D. From the University of Colorado Boulder, Alvaro Romero Calvo explained the current difficulty of producing oxygen in space, via Phys. “On the International Space Station, oxygen is generated using an electrolysis cell that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen, but then you have to get those gases out of the system.”
He continued: “A relatively recent analysis by a researcher in [Centro de Pesquisa] NASA’s Ames concluded that adapting the same structure for a trip to Mars would have such a large mass and reliability penalties that it would not make sense to use it.”
Dr. Katharina Brinkert, of the University of Warwick’s Department of Chemistry and the Center for Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM) in Germany, also commented on the issue. “Efficient phase separation in low-gravity environments is an obstacle to human space exploration and has been known since the first flights into space in the 1960s. This phenomenon presents a particular challenge to the life support system on board the spacecraft and the International Space Station, as oxygen is produced for the crew in water electrolysis systems It requires separating the electrode from the liquid with an electrolyte.”
A major problem with the current system is the lack of gravity in space. On Earth, carbon dioxide bubbles in the liquid would quickly rise to the top, but in space, the bubbles have nowhere to go, and they are suspended in the liquid.
Today, NASA uses centrifuges to get gases out of the oxygen production system. However, these machines are large and require a lot of mass, energy, and maintenance.
This is where the relevant international study comes in, which suggests that using magnetism can achieve similar results in some cases, making it possible to produce oxygen without this step.
The space application of magnetic forces by engineers remains a little undiscovered, because gravity makes it difficult to prove the technology on Earth. However, the researchers relied on the Center for Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM) in Germany, which has a special drop tower facility capable of simulating microgravity conditions.
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There, the researchers were able to develop a procedure to separate gas bubbles from the electrode surfaces in microgravity environments generated by 9.2 seconds in a free-fall tower in Bremen. Thus, it was possible to witness for the first time that gas bubbles can be “attracted” and “repelled” from a simple neodymium magnet in microgravity, by immersing them in different types of aqueous solution.
This may open opportunities for further studies by scientists and engineers working to develop systems for producing oxygen in space, which include phase changes from liquid to gas.
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