Biomanufacturing and bioprocessing of lunar regolith

Technical Report · Sat Aug 03 04:00:00 EDT 2024

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/2426281· OSTI ID:2426281

Halvorsen, Tiffany ^[1]; Merino, N. ^[1]; Diep, P. ^[1]; Wat, A. ^[1]

---

1. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)

Microbial biomanufacturing is important to accelerate lunar construction because it can leverage lunar material and waste streams as feedstocks to create a circular production system. In-space bio-mining and biomanufacturing using moon and asteroidal source material will enable the creation of infrastructure, produce industrial fuels and lubricants, and enable recovery of actinides and rare-earth elements (REEs) present in trace concentrations. Moreover, biomanufacturing in closed-loop systems (recycling and reuse of resources toward the establishment of a circular economy) will enable long-term lunar activities by recycling waste (CO₂, gray water) and producing oxygen and biomaterials. Our response focuses on the use of lunar regolith and waste streams as feedstocks for protein and microbial-enabled biomining and bioprocessing to extract actinides and REEs, and to create biocomposites for lunar infrastructure. We envision an enclosed process that initiates with (1a) extracting actinides and REEs from lunar regolith using immobilized proteins, followed by (1b) creating biocomposites from the post-extracted lunar regolith for infrastructure, and (1c) cultivating diatoms and other microalgae on waste streams to harvest silica shells for incorporating into biocomposites and to generate O₂ for human respiration and/or producing refinable feedstocks. LLNL has significant expertise in all three processes and provides facilities, personnel, and expertise at the intersection of metal (lanthanide, actinide, transition) separations, purifications, biohydrometallurgy, radiobiochemistry, synthetic and systems biology, and materials science and engineering. Importantly, all three processes are relatively well-studied for Earth-based workflows and can be derisked for demonstration on the lunar surface by 2029.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
• DOE Contract Number: AC52-07NA27344
• OSTI ID: 2426281
• Report Number(s): LLNL--TR-2000305; DARPA-SN-24-63
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES
Biological and medical sciences