A Vibrofluidized Reactor for Resource Extraction from Lunar Regolith

The extraction of oxygen and water from the lunar regolith for use as propulsion and life support consumables is an essential feature of any extended-duration missions on the Moon and in preparations for Mars. Most methods for extracting these resources involve heating lunar regolith to significant temperatures under the constraint of a limited power supply. This paper will discuss an innovative method for uniformly heating regolith using a vibrofluidized reactor. Various flow regimes encountered during vibrofluidization and preliminary heat transfer results using a standard Lunar regolith simulant, JSC-1, are presented for a range of acceleration levels and vibration frequencies. The results show that regolith compaction, segregation, or convective mixing can be accomplished depending on the acceleration levels chosen. Granular convection is shown to produce uniform temperature within the heated vibrofluidized reactor. Scaling laws that link performance in normal Earth gravity and Lunar gravity is also discussed.