Could “potatoes” materialize structures on Mars? – From The Martian to potential reality.

Product of Mars Scientists create new materials for extraterrestrial construction. It’s called ‘StarCrete’ and it’s made out of potato starch. a pinch of salt and mixed with the dust of Mars or the Moon It can also be used in the world as easily as having a baking oven. which is more than 2 times stronger than the current concrete in the world

The research paper, published in the online journal Open Engineering, was conducted by scientists from the University of Manchester. It has shown that potato starch commonly grown on Earth can act as a binding agent to simulated Martian dust. become a concrete-like material It has a compressive strength of 72 megapascals (MPa), while concrete on Earth is 32 MPa.

In addition, if mixed with simulated moon dust It is even stronger at 91 MPa. These new materials will make it easier to build extraterrestrial colonies. The infrastructure is expensive, cumbersome and complex, but potato starch is cheap and easy to find, and there are plans to grow it on Mars.

“Since we will be making starch as a food for (us) astronauts, it should be viewed as a human blood binder,” said Dr Aled Roberts, a research fellow at the University of Manchester. say They have previously experimented with creating space concrete from the blood and urine of airmen.

“however Astronauts wouldn’t want to live in a house made of platelets and urine,” he said, which is a good reason to look for other materials. thus reducing the complexity of the task. while making it cheaper and more feasible.”

The team calculated that a 25-kilogram sack of potato starch was enough to make about 213 pieces of the material, about 7,500 of which would take a three-room house.

not only that If it was used in the world This starcrete will be more environmentally friendly. This is because traditional concrete production emits 8% of the world’s carbon dioxide because it requires very high firing temperatures and also consumes a lot of energy.

Stark, on the other hand, can be made in a conventional oven or microwave at normal cooking temperatures. So it reduces both cost and energy consumption. which currently Dr. Robert and his team recently launched a start-up called ‘DeakinBio’ to further develop this Starcrete improvement.

Searched and edited by Vitit Borompichaichatkul

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