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Abstract

A manufacturing plant and process for production of hydrogen on the moon uses lunar minerals as feed and a minimum of earth-imported, process materials. Lunar feedstock is the pulverized surface layer of lunar soil known as regolith. The regolith contains up to about 150 ppm (wt.) hydrogen presumably derived from the 'solar wind'. The regolith is screened and fines of less than 200 micron size are recovered. The 200 micron, and smaller, particles are introduced into a fluidized bed reactor and fluidized in a hydrogen gas stream at a temperature of about 600.degree. C. The off-gas is passed through an absorber to separate by-product gases, such as hydrogen sulfide, which may be generated in the process, part of the hydrogen is removed to storage, and the remainder is recycled to fluidize the reactor. The recovered raw product gas is preferably further treated using combinations of selected membrane permeations and cryogenic distillations to purify product hydrogen and recover byproduct .sup.3 He, .sup.4 He, N.sub.2, carbon oxides, hydrogen sulfide and other species desorbed with the hydrogen.

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First Claim