3 ms·
I’d imagine they’ll need to do a number of electrochemical reactions to make oxygen to breathe and fuel to burn, etc... Use an oversized solar array and store
by state_less 5y ago
I’d imagine they’ll need to do a number of electrochemical reactions to make oxygen to breathe and fuel to burn, etc... Use an oversized solar array and store the chemical products in tanks. Batteries are chemical stores too, no? Anyhow, not sure of the efficiency of all these reactions, but more panels could help until further reaction improvements can be made.
- Diggsey 5y agoThe article does consider that option via splitting and storage of water, and then recombination via hydrogen fuel cells. According to the article the mass of the storage vessels needed to store 2 weeks of pressurized hydrogen and oxygen are comparable with the mass of batteries you'd need, although I haven't done the calculations myself... Intuitively I would expect this to be more efficient than batteries though.
- gpm 5y agoI think the point here is rather that power load at night can be much lower than power load during the day, if most of the energy is going to optional processes like making oxygen and/or rocket fuel.
- ncmncm 5y agoIf you are storing gases at the lunar pole, liquid is the right form. Then the tanks are very light and cheap. Liquifying gases is very easy there.