Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com, March 19 (Xinhua) scientists at the University of Manchester have invented a new material called interstellar concrete (StarCrete), which is made of outer space dust, potato starch and a little salt and can be used to build houses on Mars.

At present, the cost of building infrastructure in space is too high and difficult to achieve. Future space construction will depend on simple materials that are easily accessible to astronauts, and "interstellar concrete" provides a possible solution. The scientists of the invention used simulated Martian soil mixed with potato starch and a little salt to create the material, which is twice as strong as ordinary concrete and is ideal for construction work in outer space.

In the study, published in the journal Open Engineering, the team demonstrated that ordinary potato starch can be used as an adhesive when mixed with simulated Martian dust to produce a material similar to concrete. During the test, the compressive strength of "interstellar concrete" is 72 MPA (MPa), more than twice that of 32 MPA in ordinary concrete. Star-shaped concrete made from moon dust is even stronger, more than 91 MPA.

According to CTOnews.com, the work is an improvement on the previous work of the same team, which used astronauts' blood and urine as adhesives. Although the resulting material has a compressive strength of about 40 MPA, which is better than normal concrete, there is an obvious disadvantage that blood needs to be used on a regular basis. When operating in a harsh environment such as space, this is considered less feasible than using potato starch.

The team calculated that a bag (25kg) of dehydrated potatoes (potato chips) contained enough starch to produce nearly half a ton of "interstellar concrete", equivalent to 213 bricks. For reference, it takes about 7500 bricks to build a three-bedroom house. In addition, they found that a common salt, magnesium chloride, could significantly increase the strength of "interstellar concrete". Magnesium chloride can be obtained from the Martian surface or from astronaut tears.

The next step in the project is to transfer "interstellar concrete" from the lab to the application scenario. Dr Roberts and his team recently founded DeakinBio, a startup that is exploring ways to improve "interstellar concrete" so that it can also be used in the earth's environment.

If used on Earth, "interstellar concrete" can provide a more environmentally friendly choice than traditional concrete. Cement and concrete account for about 8% of global carbon dioxide emissions because their manufacturing processes require very high firing temperatures and energy. On the other hand, "interstellar concrete" can be made in ordinary ovens or microwave ovens at normal "home baking" temperatures, thus reducing the energy cost of production.

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