Oxygen is produced by magnetism in space

outer space

Technology Innovation Website Editor – 08/16/2022

Magnetic targeting of bubbles, pulled by right hand.
[Imagem: lvaro Romero-Calvo et al. – 10.1038/s41526-022-00212-9]

Magnetic Oxygen Separation

The researchers propose a simpler and cheaper method that relies on much smaller equipment to produce oxygen for astronauts in space.

On the International Space Station, for example, oxygen is generated using an electrolysis cell, which splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. Here on Earth, the two gases simply rise and can be captured at the surface of the water, but in space, without being able to rely on gravity, it is necessary to use large centrifuges that consume a lot of electricity and require constant maintenance.

Recently, a researcher at NASA’s Ames Research Center concluded that adapting the same structure for a trip to Mars would have such a high cost and reliability that it would not make sense to use this technology, and it is necessary to consider alternatives.

And a better alternative might be magnetism – more specifically, magnetic phase separation.

In other words, oxygen and hydrogen (gaseous phase) can be separated from electrolysis from water (liquid phase) by making use of magnetic and magnetic forces – from a microscopic perspective, ferromagnetic and ferromagnetic materials are repelled and attracted, respectively, by magnetic dipoles..

“Previous work on low-gravity magnetic hydrodynamics has explored the magnetic manipulation of air bubbles in water, the positioning of magnetic materials, air-water separation, protein crystal growth, positive magnetic positioning, magnetic stirring of liquids, and combustion optimization, among others,” the team wrote. From the Universities of Warwick (UK), Colorado Boulder (USA) and Lever de Berlin (Germany) that the use of magnetic buoyancy in phase separation under microgravity conditions remains largely unexplored.

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The team performed the tests in pure water, an aqueous solution of MnSO₄lysogeny broth (bacterial culture medium) and olive oil.
[Imagem: lvaro Romero-Calvo et al. – 10.1038/s41526-022-00212-9]

magnetic phase separation

Although magnetic forces are well known and understood, their use in space applications has not been sufficiently explored because gravity makes it difficult to prove the technology on Earth.

To cut costs, Lvaro Calvo and colleagues went to the Free Fall Tower in Bremen, which has a 122-meter-high free-fall tube that simulates a zero-gravity environment lasting about 10 seconds.

Experiments showed for the first time that gas bubbles from electrolysis can be attracted and repelled by the common neodymium mother in a microgravity environment – and all worked in very different liquids with different densities.

“Inhomogeneous magnetic fields induce a weak volume force in continuous media which, due to differential magnetic properties between phases, results in a net buoyancy effect. This phenomenon is known as magnetic buoyancy and has been applied to geothermal boiling experiments with ferromagnetic fluids,” the team explained.

“These effects have serious consequences for the development of phase separation systems as well as for long-term space missions, suggesting that efficient production of oxygen and, for example, hydrogen in electrolyzer systems (photo), can be achieved even in experiments coordinator Professor Katharina Brinkert.” almost absence of buoyant force.

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