Terrestrial minerals are just slag until they are processed and purified. Lunar resources can be categorized according to the abundance of certain minerals it is composed of. There are two basic cases:
Case 1:
If the soil is composed of 90 percent anorthite, a plagioclase feldspar, the chemical composition means that processing 1 tonne of lunar soil could yield:
210 kg silicon (consumes 6.81 gigajoules)
180 kg aluminum (consumes 5.59 gigajoules)
136 kg calcium (consumes 2.15 gigajoules)
8 kg magnesium (consumes 0.21 gigajoules)
9 kg iron (consumes 0.13 gigajoules)
457 kg oxygen (320 cubic meters at STP)
A set of processes with a 20 kW powerplant would require at least 8.6 days to process this much lunar anorthite.
Case 2:
If the soil is composed of 90 percent ilmenite, also a feldspar, the chemical composition means that processing 1 tonne of lunar soil could yield
288 kg titanium (consumes 5.68 gigajoules)
334 kg iron (consumes 4.93 GigaJoules)
18 kg silicon (consumes 0.58 GigaJoules)
8 kg magnesium (consumes 0.20 GigaJoules)
8 kg calcium (consumes 0.13 GigaJoules)
6 kg aluminum (consumes 0.18 GigaJoules)
338 kg oxygen (237 cubic meters at STP)
A set of processes with a 20 kW powerplant would require at least 7 days to process this much lunar ilmenite.
Metallurgy is an extremely energy intensive operation. In addition, sacrificial carbon anodes may be needed depending on the process, as well as very heavy equipment and high maintenance. Large volumes of oxygen would be evolved and would be difficult to store.
The economic value of several tonnes of sheet metal pure or alloyed, wafers of silicon, ferromagnetic bars/filings of iron, just sitting on the moon is infinitely more valuable than the regolith from which it came.
Imagine what it would be worth? Guess.
Space/Science » in reply to Harrison Schmitt is a University of Wisconsin academic
re: Value comes from the work we do to lunar resources
