Gloucestershire company wins prize for inventing way to produce clean water on moon | The moon
A prize of 150,000 pounds was won for a device that can produce clean lunar soil by iceberg by inventors that include a microwave oven solution, a device equipped with engines to feed wood in barbecue and sound waves.
1.2 million pounds Aqualunar ChallengeFunded by the UK Space Agency’s International Fund and the division between the Canadian -led Canadian teams, they were designed to encourage innovative solutions to the problem of drinking water production from Reggoleeth is rich in ice-rocks and dust-around the moon The Antarctic.
“NASA has set the goal of creating a permanent base on the moon by the end of the contract,” Megan Christian, a pioneer of a spare space and a UK commercial exploration commander space The agency, which is also the head of the jury at Aqualunar Challenge. “Space pioneers will need reliable water supplies to drink and develop foods, as well as oxygen for air and hydrogen for fuel.”
However, water extraction is difficult. The temperatures on the moon can decrease to up to -173 ° C, there is a low weight and the pressure is so low that the moon can be considered under vacuum conditions.
Now a small company based in Gloucestershire Nicker scientific He reached a solution that won the UK challenge arm.
Lulan Nicker, the company’s coach, said victory was a surprise. “We were against professors, big teams, and teams with the full power of UK University resources.”
Two contestants will receive prizes: RDSPace Ltd will get the Redspace LTD team at 100,000 pounds for the Franks neutralization group (Frank) while a team from Queen Mary University in London will receive 50,000 pounds for Aqualunarpure – an approach dependent on urgent water production.
Nicker said that he and his colleague, Dr. Sayyran Calman, avoided a brief starting from the starting of the contaminated ice, and instead they worked on the basis that this should first be extracted from the moon Riggolith.
The result, called the Sonochem system, is multi -step Contraction deserved Wallace and Gromit. Ice soil is fed in a potato -similar container that is constantly transported, by Oger, to the quartz tube that passes through the middle of the microwave oven that has been operated on its side. There is heated, causing the different water and pollutants to evaporate, and leave the soil behind it.
“After the microwave process, these gases cannot be flowing because pressure on the moon is very low,” Nicker said.
The gases are then frozen, before being wiping under pressure and exposed to ultrasound, creating millions of small bubbles in contaminated water.
He said: “When the bubbles arise, there is actually a small explosion that occurs,” adding that the high temperatures and translated pressures that were created cause pollutants in the water either to evaporate, or are divided into other materials that evaporate later, leaving behind clean water.
Naicker said, in the absence of ice cream from the moon, the team tested the preparation using homemade Reagole based on the sands of the building – although he did not taste the water produced by the process.
Naker said it also works on how to use water to produce the motivation for missile engines. He hopes to use the prize funds to develop his three -year -old businesses and announces graduates to help marketing the technologies developed by the team.
He said: “I managed to enter into cooperation with two companies interested in a derivative of moon technology: in one cases, he found that the ultrasound team, in another case, is a liquid treatment device,” adding that the team found that ultrasound can be used to remove a group of pollutants from water including pharmacy and American products.
