Scientists have found a way to generate oxygen for astronauts usingmagnets.
Researchers at the University of Warwick have formed part of an international team that has devised a technology to convert water to oxygen in a zero-gravity space environment.
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) breathe oxygen produced using an electrolysis process that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. However, this method is not suitable for interplanetary space travel.
"Oxygen is produced on the International Space Station using an electrolytic cell that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen, after which these gases must be expelled from the system." University of Colorado, Boulder Received a PhD in school.
"A relatively recent analysis by NASA Ames researchers found that adapting the same architecture for a trip to Mars would incur significant penalties in mass and reliability. We concluded that there was no point in using it.”
Current methods for the low-gravity environment of the ISS use centrifuges to push the gas out, but the machines are large and have considerable mass. , power, and maintenance.
"Efficient phase separation in a low-gravity environment is an obstacle to human space exploration, known since the first flights into space in the 1960s," she of the University of Warwick Department of Chemistry said. Dr. Katharina Brinkert said.
"This phenomenon is particularly challenging for spacecraft-onboard life support systems and the ISS because crew oxygen is generated in the water electrolyser system and must be separated from the electrodes and liquid electrolyte.
"These effects will have significant implications for the further development of phase separation systems, such as for long-term space missions. This is due to the efficient use of oxygen and e.g. It suggests that hydrogen production is possible, and can be achieved even with little buoyancy."
