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Just because it works with martian atmospheric conditions doesn't mean you have to do it in open atmo. Instead you can fill a chamber at atmospheric pressure, r
by CuriousCosmic 4y ago
Just because it works with martian atmospheric conditions doesn't mean you have to do it in open atmo. Instead you can fill a chamber at atmospheric pressure, run the device, then pump the oxygenated air into a filtration system to process from there. This is pretty similar to what the researchers did to prove the concept on earth anyways (build it in a sealed tube with mars-like atmo).
The main issue after simply having oxygen is that the martian atmosphere has so much CO2 and so little everything else. Considering that subsurface temperatures can get low enough to sublimate CO2 into dry ice, you could potentially (and I say potentially because this isn't my specialty by any means) build an air production loop that uses relatively little power other than to drive the plasma reactor itself and a thermal pump to bring cold fluid to the surface to chill the oxygenated air so that the CO2 sublimates out. Of course here you could also just use energy to chill the gas via a compression chiller or make some tradeoff between the two. This process would move you along the following steps:
Standard Atmosphere with 95% CO2, 2.5% N2, and 2.5% trace elements (mostly argon, also a very small amount of O2, and a tiny amount of CO).
After Plasma Reactor: 65% CO2, 30% O2, 2.5% N2, and 2.5% trace elements.
After Sublimation: Lower volume of gas with 85% O2, ~7% N2, 5.5% argon (from trace elements), and the rest of the trace elements. And the CO2 is now dry ice.
Then it's just a matter of diluting the "purified air" with nitrogen or other inert gasses, adjusting the pressure, and preventing buildup of any nasties in the trace elements (such as the carbon monoxide). Now you should have breathable, earth-like atmosphere for suits and cabins.
This is mainly based on my knowledge of processes we use on earth already for extracting stuff from the air so caveat that I could be missing important details.