Plasma Reactor Techniques for Carbon Product Generation from the Martian Environment

CU Aerospace (CUA) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) propose to develop novel plasma reactors for the generation of useful carbon products, to meet the objectives of in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) in future NASA missions. Plasma techniques offer the possibility of adaptation to various environments containing carbon dioxide, including both Martian planetary and habitable atmospheres. Moreover, the planned approach can be adapted for utilization of carbon dioxide generated by industrial processes, enabling pathways to recycle waste carbon dioxide streams into useful products. The team will focus its research on generating ethylene, considering it to be a high-value target, as it is a feedstock for making various useful industrial products. The planned technological studies will combine the efficacy of various plasma approaches for splitting carbon dioxide along with novel methods for introducing hydrogen co-reactants, and determine the ethylene selectivity of the plasma reactor approaches. Successful demonstrations would have the benefit of supplanting existing industrial methods for generating ethylene (e.g., steam cracking), which use significant power resources and contribute significantly to the global carbon emissions. With the goal of realizing benefits of ISRU in future NASA missions, and in response to the strong need for addressing carbon-cycle issues in terrestrial industrial applications, the CUA-MIT team proposes to advance CO2 plasma reactors by: (1) developing an end-to-end extraction and transformation concept, (2) studying size, weight, power, and lifecycle of system components, (3) conducting experimental and computational studies to evaluate the feasibility of critical subsystems for operation in a Martian environment, (4) developing models of system scaling, throughput, and efficiency for carbon product generation, and (5) conducting a preliminary design for a prototype testbed to be revised and built in a Phase II effort