As humanity looks toward establishing a long-term presence on the Moon, the logistics of survival and sustainability take center stage. One of the most promising developments in this arena comes from a team of Chinese scientists who have devised a groundbreaking one-step method to extract water from lunar soil and convert it along with carbon dioxide into oxygen and methane.
According to a recent report from Chinese researchers, lunar regolith—the dusty, mineral-rich surface layer of the Moon could be more than just a nuisance. By leveraging its unique chemical properties, the team has found that it can be used as a catalyst to extract water and produce fuel in a single integrated process. Chemist Lu Wang, from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, emphasized the potential of this approach, saying: “The one-step integration of lunar water extraction and photothermal carbon dioxide catalysis could enhance energy utilization efficiency and decrease the cost and complexity of infrastructure development.”
The method involves heating lunar soil specifically, ilmenite-rich regolith to about 392°F (200°C) using focused sunlight. This releases water trapped in the minerals, water that originated from billions of years of comet, asteroid, and micrometeoroid impacts. Once the water is extracted, carbon dioxide, such as that exhaled by astronauts, is introduced. The ilmenite then catalyzes a reaction that splits the molecules to produce oxygen and methane through a process known as photothermal catalysis.
This approach isn’t entirely new in concept other techniques have also aimed to generate fuel and breathable air from lunar materials but the Chinese method is simpler and potentially more cost-effective. Prior systems required multiple steps, additional hardware, or catalysts that would need to be transported from Earth. The Chinese team’s use of in-situ resources, including lunar soil itself as a catalyst, marks a major step toward true lunar sustainability.
However, some experts remain cautious. Philip Metzger, a planetary physicist from the University of Central Florida and co-founder of NASA’s ‘Swamp Works’, expressed skepticism. He pointed out that lunar soil is an effective thermal insulator, which complicates heating the material evenly. “The heat does not spread effectively deeper into the soil,” he noted, meaning only a limited amount of water can be extracted quickly. While tumbling the regolith could improve heat distribution, doing so would add mechanical complexity in an already harsh environment marked by sharp temperature swings and pervasive lunar dust.
Another limitation involves the availability of carbon dioxide. Metzger estimates that astronauts would only be able to provide about 10% of the carbon dioxide required for the process through normal respiration. This shortfall could theoretically be solved by importing CO? from Earth—but doing so would undermine the entire point of building self-sufficient lunar systems.
Metzger also referenced past experiments using a man-made catalyst, nickel-on-kieselguhr, which proved to be more efficient than lunar regolith. Although transporting such a catalyst from Earth would be expensive, its reusability could make it cost-effective in the long term. This introduces a potential trade-off between using readily available but less efficient lunar soil versus bringing optimized catalysts from Earth.
Despite the challenges, the Chinese team has demonstrated the core viability of their concept in the lab using a simulant of lunar regolith based on samples from China’s Chang’e-5 mission. Since the actual lunar material is far too valuable to use destructively, simulants are the best proxy researchers currently have for real-world testing.
The next hurdle will be to scale up the system and test its functionality under actual lunar conditions: lower gravity, extreme radiation, and significant thermal fluctuations. Metzger acknowledged the importance of the research, saying: “These are highly interesting results… More work will be needed to show whether this concept can be economically competitive. I am skeptical, but all good ideas have their detractors.”
While there is no immediate rush, NASA’s Artemis III mission is not expected to land astronauts on the Moon until 2027 at the earliest, these findings could play a critical role in future missions.