Research Press Release
Nature Synthesis
November 13, 2023
A paper reports that an oxygen-producing substance was created from a Martian meteorite using robotic artificial intelligence (AI) chemists.Nature SynthesisPublished in The study proves the concept of oxygen production and could have implications for future human missions to Mars.
Oxygen is used in rocket propellants and life support systems, and is critical to human activities on Mars. Therefore, future manned missions to Mars will require oxygen production. One way to make these missions more cost-effective and simpler over the long term would be to generate oxygen using resources already present on Mars, rather than transporting it from Earth. . New evidence for the presence of water on Mars and analysis of the elemental composition of Martian meteorites could provide an opportunity to synthesize catalysts using Martian resources.
Jun Jiang and colleagues have now developed a robotic AI chemist that can synthesize a catalyst that generates oxygen from Martian materials without human intervention. Jiang and his colleagues selected five types of meteorites that originated from Mars or have been confirmed to exist on Mars and analyzed them using a robotic AI chemist. Robotic AI chemists were able to convert meteorites into chemical compounds, synthesize catalysts from these compounds, and then examine their ability to produce oxygen. The robot repeated this process until it found the best catalyst. It has been suggested that this work would take 2,000 years if done by humans. Jiang et al. then showed that the catalyst could work under simulated Martian conditions.
Jiang and colleagues say the robotic AI chemist was able to use Mars meteorites to automate the synthesis of catalysts, a finding that could lead to ways humans can produce oxygen on Mars in the future. It is concluded that there is.
doi:10.1038/s44160-023-00424-1
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