Scientists say they’ve developed a technology that could help people survive on the moon.

Chinese researchers, in a new study published today in the Cell Press journal Joule, have successfully extracted water from lunar soil and utilized it to transform carbon dioxide into oxygen and fuel-related chemicals.

This breakthrough could pave the way for future deep space missions by reducing our reliance on Earth as the sole provider of vital resources such as water and fuel.

“We never fully imagined the ‘magic’ that the lunar soil possessed,” Lu Wang of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, said.

“The biggest surprise for us was the tangible success of this integrated approach.

“Integrating lunar water extraction with photothermal carbon dioxide catalysis in a single step could improve energy use efficiency while cutting down on infrastructure costs and complexity.”

Space agencies have floated the idea of using the Moon as an outpost for far-flung explorations of the cosmos for decades.

However, the need to supply such a base with adequate resources to support its inhabitants – especially water – has been a barrier to making it a reality.

A single gallon of water costs about US$83,000 ($126,378) to ship by rocket, according to the study, with each astronaut drinking about four gallons per day.

One gallon is about 3.7 litres.

Previously developed strategies for extracting water from lunar soil involved multiple energy-intensive steps and didn’t break down CO2 for fuel and other essential uses.

To advance this research, Wang and colleagues developed a technology that would both extract water from lunar soil and directly use it to convert the CO2 exhaled by astronauts into carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen gas, which could then be used to make fuels and oxygen for the astronauts to breathe.

The technology accomplishes this feat through a novel photothermal strategy, which converts light from the Sun into heat.

Despite success in the lab, the extreme lunar environment still poses challenges that will complicate its usage on the moon, according to the authors, including drastic temperature fluctuations, intense radiation, and low gravity.

Also, lunar soil in its natural environment does not have a uniform composition, which leads to it having inconsistent properties, while CO2 from astronauts’ exhalations might not be enough to offer a basis for all the water, fuel, and oxygen they need.

Technological limitations also continue to present a barrier, with current catalytic performance still insufficient to fully support human life in environments beyond Earth, said Wang.

“Overcoming these technical hurdles and significant associated costs in development, deployment, and operation will be crucial to realising sustainable lunar water utilisation and space exploration,” the authors write.