Weathering lunar regolith through dispersion in water will lead to the release of ions into the liquid-if such dispersions are dried, the ions will be precipitated at interparticle contact points resulting in hard powder compacts/agglomerates. This mechanism could either be used to build infrastructure or inform/compliment other ISRU efforts on the Moon. Furthermore, the dissolution/precipitation of individual lunar minerals and glasses might be employed to produce synthetic phyllosilicates. Such materials would have a great number of applications in ISRU (e.g., fusion drying of phyllosilicates has been an essential construction technology for all major civilizations on Earth). Here, wet-processing of simple lunar regolith simulants from two feldspar powders commonly used in the porcelain industry for dry powder compacts (similar to dry sandcastles) is presented. In a first step, feldspar powders were dispersed in deionized water and a pH buffer to study mineral dissolution. Dispersions were aging to increase ion concentrations and subsequently, water content was reduced. The resulting pastes were molded into cylindrical shapes and dried. Dried powder compacts yielded compressive strength of ～0.23 MPa from deionized water and 0.52-0.7 MPa for powders dispersed in buffer solution.
展开▼
