Engineers use simulated moon dust to make glass
Engineers have successfully manufactured glass using simulated moon dust, and found this “moonglass” works better than Earth glass in solar panels.
To test the idea, the researchers melted a substance designed to simulate Moon dust into moonglass and used it to build a new kind of solar cell. They crafted the cells by pairing moonglass with perovskite—a class of crystals that are cheaper, easier to make, and very efficient in turning sunlight into electricity. For every gram of material sent to space, the new panels produced up to 100 times more energy than traditional solar panels.
…When the team zapped the solar cells with space-grade radiation, the moonglass versions outperformed the Earth-made ones. Standard glass slowly browns in space, blocking sunlight and reducing efficiency. But moonglass has a natural brown tint from impurities in the Moon dust, which stabilizes the glass, prevents it from further darkening, and makes the cells more resistant to radiation.
Though encouraging, they are many unknowns that could become show stoppers. For one, this research was all done in Earth gravity. In the Moon’s 1/6th gravity the results might be very different. For another, all they have done is demonstrate a way to make glass using Moon dust. That is a far cry from building solar panels, as implied by the press release.
Nonetheless, the results demonstrate one more way in which a lunar base can eventually become self-sufficient, the inevitable goal.
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Engineers have successfully manufactured glass using simulated moon dust, and found this “moonglass” works better than Earth glass in solar panels.
To test the idea, the researchers melted a substance designed to simulate Moon dust into moonglass and used it to build a new kind of solar cell. They crafted the cells by pairing moonglass with perovskite—a class of crystals that are cheaper, easier to make, and very efficient in turning sunlight into electricity. For every gram of material sent to space, the new panels produced up to 100 times more energy than traditional solar panels.
…When the team zapped the solar cells with space-grade radiation, the moonglass versions outperformed the Earth-made ones. Standard glass slowly browns in space, blocking sunlight and reducing efficiency. But moonglass has a natural brown tint from impurities in the Moon dust, which stabilizes the glass, prevents it from further darkening, and makes the cells more resistant to radiation.
Though encouraging, they are many unknowns that could become show stoppers. For one, this research was all done in Earth gravity. In the Moon’s 1/6th gravity the results might be very different. For another, all they have done is demonstrate a way to make glass using Moon dust. That is a far cry from building solar panels, as implied by the press release.
Nonetheless, the results demonstrate one more way in which a lunar base can eventually become self-sufficient, the inevitable goal.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
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c/o Robert Zimmerman
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Cortaro, AZ 85652
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I’d suggest looking up “crystal polymorphism.”
When Ritonavir “Disappeared”
https://youtu.be/PccOwGEbtQU
9:47
The real ice-9
“…new panels produced up to 100 times more energy than traditional solar panels.” & from the paper (“This change alone could cut a spacecraft’s launch mass by 99.4%, slash 99% of transport costs, and make long-term lunar settlements more feasible”).
I haven’t fully read the paper yet, but I interpreted the statement: ‘existing PV cells are 10-40% efficient’, so these cells will be well above 100% efficient if producing 100x the energy. Obviously that can’t be, or I am misinterpreting their words. So their sentence is more PR than engineering. And few engineering discoveries, involving power, have reduced any costs by 99+%.
On the other hand. olivine exists in meteorites (pallasites – I have a slice of one) and makes up a fair amount of the mineral “stuff” of earth. It can be converted (with ‘sufficient’ temp & pressures) to perovskite. Since the moon was blasted off the earth, it too should have plenty of olivine. Conversion to perovskite is then a chemical process, albeit requiring a factory of sorts. So we may not even have to send the finished materials for their design of PV cells from earth. A bonus – no import tariffs that way, for locally produced products!
Since they were talking of as little as 1 kg of perovskite, obviously that would be cheap to send from earth, without constructing production facilities on the moon.
Don C.;
After going down the rabbit hole, I discovered what you knew.
Your suspicions are correct, even though the crystals show promise, they’re at 25% efficiency now. There’s at least a dozen different types of crystals utilizing different chemicals and structures and methods. They’re hoping to have the most efficient cell soon. The leading contender involves lead, which is not cheap to bring from earth. The efficiency is variable depending on temperature and the strong sunlight in space. Because it utilizes a larger spectrum of light, it decomposes faster as it produces a variable amount of electricity. That’s where the smoky glass comes in to promote longer shelf life filtering UV light that’ll break down substrate. They expect a maximum of 20 years lifespan (output diminishes 5 to 10% per year depending on solar activity) which brings up the problem of/ or ability to recycle which has it at this point twice the cost of normal solar cells. They cannot go to terrestrial garbage dumps because of the lead but that’s not a problem on the moon. If they can’t be recycled they’ll be used as covered sidewalks, or launched into space by rail guns to burn up in earths atmosphere.
Although mass production has gotten the cost down, you still cannot produce a new solar cell with the energy produced only by a solar cell. (Solar cells are “negative” energy producers… They have their applications like on satellites but they’re not economical or practical unless you get someone else like taxpayers to pay for them) by the time they are paid for, they need to be replaced.
The cost of making solar cells on the moon will be so prohibitive, it should only be talked about in science fiction. The metal support structure alone will cost as much as producing materials on earth.
Baby steps, find the raw materials and start mining. Methods and techniques will be experimented to find what works in a vacuum and low gravity. Manufacturing processes and the availability of equipment without losing lives will take years… And a lot of energy so we need to be talking only about on demand dependable nuclear power and not what’s available during only 14 days of sunlight.
Which brings up energy storage, “batteries”.
A massive electrical storage is the other half of the equation if you’re able to build miles of solar cells…, even with solar mirror hydroelectric systems will need a back up for the two week long night.
Untell a linked infrastructure that circumnavigate the moon with a power station always in sunlight transmitting constant energy into the grid… Nuclear power is the only reliable source.
Which reminds me, have you seen the nuclear battery products that China will soon be offering? Batteries that last 50 years?