jeff bezos' space company, blue origin, transforms moon soil into lunar solar energy

jeff bezos’ Blue origin powers our lunar future

Jeff Bezos is not only the CEO of Amazon, but also the founder of the space company Blue Origin, whose goal is to create a future where people live and work in space to benefit the Earth. The famous American billionaire recently announced that his firm has developed a special ‘Blue Alchemist’ technology that transforms lunar regolith, a.k.a Moon dust, into solar cells. The idea behind this project is to manufacture solar panels directly on the Moon, rather than importing them from Earth.

‘To make long-term presence on the Moon viable, we need abundant electrical power. We can make power systems on the Moon directly from materials that exist everywhere on the surface, without special substances brought from Earth. We have pioneered the technology and demonstrated all the steps. Our approach, Blue Alchemist, can scale indefinitely, eliminating power as a constraint anywhere on the Moon.’ shares the space company in a public blog post.

all images courtesy of Blue Origin

Blue Origin (find more here) the process by producing simulants that are chemically and mineralogically similar to lunar regolith. This ensures that the source material is as realistic as possible. ‘We have developed and qualified an efficient, scalable, and contactless process for melting and moving molten regolith that is robust to natural variations in regolith properties on the Moon.’ explains the firm. The team then proceeds with separating oxygen from silicon, iron, and aluminum through a procedure called ‘molten regolith electrolysis,’ in which an electrical current separates those elements from the oxygen to which they are bound.

Silicon is an important component of the solar cell, and this process produces an extremely pure version of silicon suitable for solar panels. Blue Origin claims that its method doesn’t use the toxic chemicals commonly used on Earth to purify silicon. The solar cell is covered with glass made from regolith electrolysis byproducts. Blue Origin estimates that solar cells made using this method could last more than a decade. ‘Because our technology manufactures solar cells with zero carbon emissions, no water, and no toxic ingredients or other chemicals, it has exciting potential to directly benefit the Earth.’