Quantification of Efficiency of Beneficiation of Lunar Regolith

Autor: Jacqueline Quinn, Fumiya Watanabe, John E. Lane, Steve Trigwell, Kyle Weis, James G. Captain
Rok vydání: 2013
Předmět:
Zdroj: Particulate Science and Technology. 31:45-50
ISSN: 1548-0046
0272-6351
DOI: 10.1080/02726351.2011.641071
Popis: Electrostatic beneficiation of lunar regolith is being researched at Kennedy Space Center to enhance the ilmenite concentration of the regolith for the production of oxygen in in-situ resource utilization on the lunar surface. Ilmenite enrichment of up to 200% was achieved using lunar simulants. For the most accurate quanitification of the regolith particles, standard petrographic methods are typically followed, but in order to optimize the process, many hundreds of samples were generated in this study that made the standard analysis methods time prohibitive. In the current studies, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and secondary electron microscopy/energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM/EDS) were used that could automatically, and quickly, analyze many separated fractions of lunar simulant. In order to test the accuracy of the quantification, test mixture samples of known quantities of ilmenite (2, 5, 10, and 20 wt%) in silica (pure quartz powder), were analyzed by XPS and EDS. The results showed that ...
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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