Researchers want to turn Martian air, dirt and sunlight into iron

A team of researchers led by Swinburne’s Professor Akbar Rhamdhani has published the first detailed study of its kind on metal production on another planet.

The team is focused on metal extraction on Mars. They are developing a process that will process air, dirt and sunlight on Mars to create metallic iron. It uses concentrated solar energy as a heat source and carbon produced by cooling CO gas – a byproduct of oxygen production in the Martian atmosphere.

This oxygen production was demonstrated on Mars on the Perseverance rover by NASA’s MOXIE (Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment) project. Therefore, Swinburne’s metals extraction process is to be coupled with a future oxygen generation facility (one much larger than MOXIE) to co-produce oxygen and iron alloys that can be used to make metals. This can then be used to advance human mission and development on Mars.

Why do we need metals on other planets?

Bringing technology to space is expensive, time-consuming and environmentally damaging. The production of resources from other planets allows for more efficient, cheaper and more sustainable development in space.

This allows for more extensive human exploration and the expansion of technologies such as satellites that help collect data and solve problems on Earth.

Next Steps

The team – postdoc Dr. Reiza Mukhlis and Ph.D. Students Deddy Nababan, Matthew Shaw and Matthew Humbert from Swinburne’s Fluid and Process Dynamics Research Group and Space Technology and Industry Institute are currently working closely with CSIRO Minerals and the CSIRO Space Technology Future Science Platform to take the research to the next level bring to.

Professor Akbar Rhamdhani says: “We aim to develop a metal extraction process on Mars that truly utilizes local resources – without bringing reactants from Earth – to support further human mission and development on Mars.

“If you wanted to build something big on Mars without having to pay to launch everything from Earth (think large satellites, Martian colonies, tank farms and more), it could be a very valuable process.”

Swinburne Director of the Space Technology and Industry Institute, Professor Alan Duffy, says: “Australia is committed to supporting NASA’s return to the Moon and transgression of Mars in Project Artemis, and they will promote the use of the resources of the Moon and the Earth.” Mars require to make this feasible. We’re leveraging Swinburne’s expertise and industry partnerships in resource extraction and processing to make NASA’s vision of astronauts walking the red planet a little easier. This work is a small step for metalworking that can yield a giant leap for humanity building outside the world.”