System for constructing building material from lunar soil and associated method
AssigneeUniversity of Central Florida Research Foundation, Inc.
InventorPhilip Metzger
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A system and associated method constructs a building material from lunar soil. A magnetic sorter magnetically sorts the lunar soil and the system creates a layered surface comprising a microwave susceptible, thermal conductive top layer of lunar soil and a poorly microwave-susceptible and poorly thermally conductive sublayer of lunar soil. A microwave generator generates microwave energy into an antenna and directs the microwave energy onto the top layer of lunar soil to sinter the microwave susceptible, thermal conductive top layer of lunar soil.
Claims22
A method of constructing a building material from lunar soil, comprising:
- magnetically sorting the lunar soil and creating a layered surface comprising a microwave susceptible, thermal conductive top layer of lunar soil, and a poorly microwave-susceptible and poorly thermally conductive sublayer of lunar soil;
- and
- sintering the microwave susceptible, thermal conductive top layer of lunar soil by directing microwave energy onto the top layer of lunar soil.
A method of constructing a building material from lunar soil, comprising:
- pneumatically sorting the lunar soil into a coarser fraction of lunar soil and a dust fraction of lunar soil;
- magnetically sorting the coarser fraction of lunar soil into a non-magnetic isolate and a magnetic isolate and magnetically sorting the dust fraction of lunar soil into a less-magnetic dust isolate and more-magnetic dust isolate;
- laying down a sublayer from the non-magnetic isolate and less-magnetic dust isolate;
- laying down a top layer from the magnetic isolate and more-magnetic dust isolate to create a layered surface comprising a microwave susceptible, thermal conductive top layer of lunar soil, and a poorly microwave-susceptible and poorly thermally conductive sublayer of lunar soil;
- and
- sintering the microwave susceptible, thermal conductive top layer of lunar soil by directing microwave energy onto the top layer of lunar soil.
A system of constructing a building material from lunar soil, comprising:
- a magnetic separator that magnetically sorts the lunar soil into a non-magnetic isolate and magnetic isolate;
- a compactor configured to create a layered surface comprising a microwave susceptible, thermal conductive top layer of lunar soil formed from the magnetic isolate and a poorly microwave-susceptible and poorly thermally conductive sublayer of lunar soil from the non-magnetic isolate;
- a microwave generator configured to generate microwave energy;
- and
- an antenna connected to the microwave generator and configured to direct the microwave energy against the microwave susceptible, thermal conductive top layer of lunar soil and sinter the top layer of lunar soil.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.