Say What? AI-Powered Robotic Chemist Can Possibly Generate Oxygen On Mars
A team of?Chinese?researchers has developed a robotic?artificial intelligence?(AI) chemist capable of producing oxygen from water on?Mars?using meteorites from the Red Planet.
AI robot might be able to produce oxygen on Mars?
The scarcity of oxygen, which is essential for long-term existence, poses a huge hurdle to human migration to Mars. The latest discovery of water activity on Mars provides cause for optimism.
Researchers investigated the possibility of breaking down water to generate oxygen by electrochemical water oxidation powered by solar energy and facilitated by oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalysts.?
What are the challenges?
The challenge is to develop a way to synthesise these catalysts on Mars using local materials, removing the need to ship them from Earth, which is an expensive endeavor.
To address this issue, a team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences' (CAS) University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) created a robotic AI chemist capable of automatically synthesising and optimising OER catalysts from Martian meteorites.
"The AI chemist innovatively synthesised an OER catalyst using Martian material based on interdisciplinary cooperation," said Prof. Luo Yi, the USTC team's principal scientist.?
Their findings appear in the journal Nature Synthesis. Under unattended settings, the AI chemist created an excellent catalyst utilising five different types of Martian meteorites.?
What did the findings reveal?
The catalyst ran continuously for more than 550,000 seconds at a current density of 10 mA cm2 and an overpotential of 445.1 mV. In a further test at Mars's temperature of -37 degrees Celsius, the catalyst continually created oxygen with no obvious deterioration.?
"This breakthrough technology brings us one step closer to achieving our dream of living on Mars," he added.?
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