Blue Origin has developed technology to process lunar soil

Blue Origin has created two new divisions within the Blue Alchemist project, one dedicated to the orbital station project and the other dedicated to economic activities on the Moon. NASA has already received a commercial proposal from them to apply to the Artemis mission some technology for processing lunar regolith. It is reported that solar panels, electrical wiring and protective materials for lunar structures have already been successfully created from the exact imitation of regolith.

The Blue Alchemist project has been underway for two years, with scientists and engineers searching for ways to process artificial regolith, which chemically fully corresponds to the lunar soil. It is an extremely useful material, as it is rich in silicon, aluminum, iron, magnesium, and other elements. Calculations show that complete recycling of regolith will reduce to zero the need to supply construction and production materials for lunar colonies from Earth.

The high-temperature electrolysis technology developed at Blue Alchemist made it possible to extract 99% purity silicon from regolith, which became the basis for complete solar panels. Other extracted elements made transparent glass protective shells for them, plus metals suitable for building structures. Alas, all this has so far only been realized in laboratories, so now Blue Origin intends to test its developments on the real moon.

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