Technology for Resource Acquisition and Nutrient Synthesis through Ferric Oxide Reduction on Mars
Project TRANSFORM. is Mars mining laboratory inspired by nature. The project is based upon studies of the different ant species extracting different parameters to establish a sustainable colony located in the deeps of Valles Marineris in a harsh cold environment.
We wanted to combine between two distinct and different programs the habitats and the mining and the ants do both perfectly.
The Project relies heavily on the passive mining techniques to gather its minerals. One of the ways to do it is by harvesting the power of nature, Landslides… Valles Marineris has an abundance of lava rocks which aren’t stable and can cause a lot of landslides so why not use these Landslides to gather as much as possible of the regolith to sustain our colony…
To Select our site we needed to study the amount of regolith in each point of the site per m3 after a landslide in according with the Landslide speed to see whether it is in an acceleration or deceleration state.
We were looking for 2 parameters:
- A decent amount of regolith optimally between 1000m3 to 5000m3
- A low V-final to make sure the Landslide is in a Deceleration speed
CHEMICAL LOOP
We are looking for the ferric oxide in the gathered regolith. The ferric oxide is highly abundant in Mars. The goal is to transform decompose this ferric oxide to Iron metal and Oxygen to be able to sustain our colony, using different chemical reactions techniques.
Building our Chemical Loop based on none but the Martian Regolith gathered from the Landslides
Reaction1- using the ferric oxide which is rust and add copper atoms and through a spontaneous redox reaction we can get Iron metal, copper ion and Energy
Reaction2- Using the same copper ions we got with the Iron metal we can create our own batteries
Reaction3- Using the Rust again with the Heat we got from reaction1 we can heat the ferric oxide to get iron metal again and Oxygen
Reaction4- Using the rust and some sulfates highly abundant on mars we can create ferric ion and water
Setting out all our reactions respectively to create our chemical loop.
After acquiring our resources we planning to exchange them with the other colonies.
INSPIRED BY NATURE
“Ant inspired Techniques for building safe Martian havens”
We extracted different buildings techniques from different ants and implemented them into our project.
We’ve been able to extract building concepts from nature and turn them into real architectural elements
PROGRAM/ZONING
PSEUDO CODE-FORM GENRATION
SHELL STRUCTURAL OPTIMISATION
PODS 1UNIT BREAKDOWN
Habitation Unit Layout
Entertainment Unit Layout
Laboratory Unit Layout
EXPLODED DIAGRAM
CHEMICAL DECK REACTIONS ILLUSTRATION
DOCUMENTATION
RENDERS
