University of Wisconsin-Madison

An example of how one might use oxygen in conjunction with the extraction of SWV's is shown in these 3 figures. The basic idea is that instead of removing the hydrogen from the output stream of a lunar miner, one could recycle the hydrogen to increase the water production from ilmenite heated to ~ 700 ^oC. Once enough water is produced and the oxygen extracted by electrolysis, the fuel cycle loop can be closed and all of the hydrogen generated by the miner can be removed for use elsewhere. See each of these 3 figures for more details (Kulcinski et al., 1996).