Abstract of the Offer
Interstellar Mapping is a multinational off-Earth mapping and technology company based in the UK, USA and Australia. Interstellar Mapping have developed a water extraction system (SWES) for the Moon, that can operate in extreme and remote conditions without human intervention. SWES’s design allows it to be used on Earth for extracting water from undersaturated soils and other bulk material, including extracting drinking water from desert soils; and removing excess water from mine tailings and ore, reducing the environmental footprint of operations.
Description
Interstellar Mapping have built a system that is able to extract and purify water from the Moon’s regolith, called the static water extraction system ("SWES"). SWES has been designed to operate in the harshest of lunar environments, able to extract and purify 1kg of water per hour from lunar regolith using 1.3KW of power. Key to the design of SWES is the system able to separate contaminant volatiles from purified water using distillation, while continuously feeding the system with fresh regolith feed stock and discarding processed regolith. Applications can include:
Space – Lunar Sciences and Exploration
SWES has been designed for lunar application to support exploration and commercialisation of the Earth’s Moon, and can be used on any planetary body that has gravity. SWES’s design allow lunar water and other volatiles to be extracted, separated and stored in separate containers, so the volatiles can be utilised or analysed with little or no further processing. Coupled with Interstellar Mapping’s thermal map of the Moon, SWESs can be designed for the operating conditions and anticipated lunar volatiles known to exist within the regolith to be processed.
On-Earth Applications
Personal Water Extraction and Purification - Humanitarian Relief
Moisture content in the driest areas on Earth are similar to or greater than the water content within the Moon’s regolith (soil). Capturing this moisture using SWES can be used to provide drinking water to people or communities cut off from due to drought, conflict and/or those people working/operating in these conditions.
Personal Water Extraction and Purification - Defence
Defence personnel operating in forward locations or in remote regions without access to water supplies can be fitted with SWES personal water extraction and purification kits as part of their survival packs.
Commercial Applications
SWES can be scaled to remove excess water or volatiles from bulk material including:
- mining
- soils
- food stuffs
- and other industrial products
Using the mining sector as an example, Australia's Pilbara iron ore mining companies, produce and ship 18.01 million metric tonnes of iron ore each week (Telegin, A., Argus Media, 1st May 2024) that contains 2.5-4.5wt% of water (Commodity Law, Who Should Bear The Financial Loss For Cargo Quantity Shortages Occurred Due To Moisture Drainage In The Sea Carriage Of Coal, Iron Ore Fines And Mineral Concentrates, 2024). This equates to 450,000-810,000 metric tonnes of water being transported from the mine site per week, of which the majority is pumped from the ships into the ocean during transit. With the Pilbara mining companies operating in one of the most desolate and dry regions on Earth, the environmental impact resulting from the removal of the water from the region can result in long term ecological damage. Furthermore, the added shipping cost of US$9.47 per metric tonne (Lim, K.G., Endogeneity of commodity price in freight cost models, 2022), equates to a total cost of US$224-402M per annum to transport water with the ore.
An industrial scale sized SWES unit integrated with the existing drying systems deployed on the mine site could be used to extract and capture the vast majority of the water in the iron ore, reducing the operating cost and environmental and carbon footprint of the mine.
Furthermore, waste rock cuttings that are produced from the extraction of mining ore, called tailings, contain large quantities of water - typically greater than 20wt% water per weight of dry material. Storage and containment of the tailings has proven difficult as seen by the collapse of BHP's Samarco mine's tailings dam, that killed 19 people, left 700 homeless and polluted local rivers and landscapes, with BHP paying compensation of US$25.7billion. The installation of SWES units to remove the excess fluid from the tailings, could have prevented the failure of the dam.
Advantages and Innovations
SWES is able to operate autonomously in extreme and remote environmental conditions for extended periods of time. Its application can be used in numerous applications, providing water to isolated and desolate communities with no access to a steady water supply, refugee or drought stricken humanitarian relief, removal of contaminants from soils used in rehabilitation, removing water from mine ores and tailings, and moisture from other bulk material.
SWES is able to be set up and operated without human interaction, with the system anticipated to operate for 2-3 years before requiring maintenance.
SWES is able to be scaled depending on the application, with small units able to be used for individual/personal use as an emergency survival kit, up to commercial and industrial applications removing excess moisture from bulk material, and deployed as part of a space mission.