We could make solar cell panels on the moon by melting moon dust

Future moon bases could be driven by solar cells made on site from melted moon dust.

Building objects on the moon by using materials already there would be more practical than sending them from Earth. When Felix Lang at the University of Potsdam in Germany heard about this idea, he immediately knew what to do. “It was like” We have to make a solar cell like this, immunially, “he says.

Two years later, along Team has built and tested several solar cells with Moon Dust as an ingredient. The other key component is a crystal called Halide Perovskite, which contains elements such as lead, bromine and iodine along with long molecules of carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen.

The team melted a synthetic version of Lunar Regolith – the layer of loose rocks and dust that blankets the moon – to “Moonglass”, as these are with the crystal to finish a solar cell. They did not clean the regolita, so Moonglass was less transparent than materials in conventional solar cells. But Lang says the team’s best prototypes still reached approx. 12 percent efficiency. More conventional Perovskitic solar cells typically reach efficiency closed to 26 percent; Long says Computer Suspses suggests his team could reach this number in the future.

In general, researchers agree that Perovskitian solar cells surpass the more traditional silicon -based devices, both in space and on the ground. From the Moon’s point of view it is also attractive to use perov skiing substances because they can be a lot of thinking, which will reduce the weight of the material to be transported to the Moon. According to the team’s estimates, a solar cell with an ARE area of ​​400 square meters would only require about a kilo of perovkit. This is an impressive claim, says Ian Crawford in Birkbeck, University of London.

The fact that it should not be cleansed the regulator is important as it means that no special reactors would be needed. In fact, Lang says that a large curved mirror and sunlight could create a beam of light warm enough to make moonglass. One of his colleagues was already testing this technique on the roof of their university and saw some signs of Regolith melting, he says.

Nicholas Bennett at the University of Technology Sydney says that while previous studies tried to treat Lunar Regolith for transparent glass, this is the first time a solar cell has been shown to work instead with the less fine moonglass. The challenge now, he says, is to make lots of moonglass outside the laboratory. If successful, such melting technology can help create other things that a lunar base may need, like tiles, says Crawford.

Michael Duke at the Lunar and the Planetary Institute says that the production of Moonglass-based solar cells will require many technological advances, from excavating regoliters to connecting individual cells to arrays. Still, if a solar cell factory was ever established on the moon, it could have positive knock-on effects. In this future, space -based systems such as satellites could use moon -made solar cells introduced by those created on Earth because launching payload from the Moon requires less energy, he says.

Lang and his colleagues are now working to increase the effectiveness of their solar cells. For example, they work on where they can improve the quality of their moonglass using magnets to choose iron from the regolita before melting it.

Ultimataly, they want to expand the process to other dusty citizens of space. “We’re already thinking,” can we get this to work with March Regolith? ”Says Lang.