(519d) Renewable Power to Synfuels: Building on Solid Oxide Electrolysis Advances Developed for the Mars2020 Mission

The Mars2020 mission will fly a Curiosity Class rover to Mars. One of the instruments aboard this rover will be MOXIE, the Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment. MOXIE will demonstrate the feasibility of producing oxygen from Mars atmosphere carbon dioxide using a solid oxide electrolysis (SOXE) stack. OxEon’s team led the development of this SOXE stack in collaboration with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The work resulted in delivering a set of flight qualified stacks to JPL in 2017. One stack has been integrated into the MOXIE system and installed on the rover that is scheduled for launch next year for the Mars2020 mission. The MOXIE system is about 0.5% scale of a full manned mission system and will be the first extra-terrestrial demonstration of in situ resource utilization (ISRU).

Developing technology for production of oxygen for life support and ascent vehicle propellant oxidant is essentialin preparation for human expeditions to Mars. Solid oxide electrolysis (SOXE) stacks are capable of simultaneously reducing carbon dioxide and water extracted from the Mars atmosphere and near-surface regolith to produce high purity oxygen. Methane for ascent propellent can be produced from the SOXE byproduct CO and H₂in a methanation reactor. OxEon is currently developing manned-mission scale SOXE stacks and methanation reactors as part of the NASA NextSTEP-2 ISRU program.

These same technologies are also being considered for use in storing nuclear and renewable electric power. Industrial scale installations of SOXE co-electrolysis process units coupled to methanation or Fischer-Tropsch synthesis reactors can convert bio-CO₂to non-fossil methane, jet and diesel fuels compatible with the existing fossil-fuel. Power to fuels processes are energy intensive by design but are also extremely efficient with solid oxide electrolysis demonstrating 100% first law efficiency within the control volume of the SOXE stack. Power to fuels processes also create large dispatchable loads that can be used to balance grid operations against the intermittency of renewable energy sources.

Acknowledgement: NextSTEP ISRU work is supported under NASA Contract 8-HQTR19C0006. The work related to MOXIE was based on support from NASA through JPL’s prime contract, under JPL subcontract number 1515459.