This is how you can introduce yourself to our red neighbor. For years, scientists have been feverishly working on new ideas about how we could one day colonize Mars. (Source: Adobe Stock)
The Sky is the limit
– the scientific article in the magazine Advanced Functional Materials begins with this sentence. An old saying that can even be taken literally this time.
The limits of what is humanly possible are currently being shown to us in the sky or outer space when it comes to colonizing new planets. Now scientists have discovered a material that could push this limit slightly.
Gypsum as a miracle cure for Mars colonization?
The idea of colonizing foreign planets has existed for a long time. Films like There Martians – Corrected Mark Watney
or computer games in the style of Galactic Civilizations let these dreams come to life regularly. But in order for us humans to be able to colonize foreign planets, we need one thing above all: water.
A solution approach on the Mars: Obtaining water for human needs from gypsum. There are large deposits of gypsum on the red planet according to the article with the catchy name »Quasi–1D Anhydrite Nanobelts from the Sustainable Liquid Exfoliation of Terrestrial Gypsum for Future Martian-Based Electronics« come and are said to contain large amounts of the original Martian water.
So if this water can be extracted efficiently, there would be a basis for future colonization attempts. It is important that such procedures are cost-effective and do not require specialized instruments or excessive specialist knowledge.
In order to make such processes as efficient as possible, attempts are also made to use the by-products that arise. During experiments with terrestrial gypsum, scientists discovered interesting properties when studying the resulting waste material.
Waste as building material for Mars electronics
Of course, such a study cannot be professionally broken down into one paragraph. However, for the sake of understanding it is still easier to omit some details. To put it simply, there are large calcium sulfate deposits on Mars, which represent gypsum.
These gypsum deposits can be dehydrated using a process. This ultimately creates water vapor and the byproduct anhydride. This is a robust material which – according to the study – has remarkable electronic properties.
So-called Anhydrid-Nanobelts
can have a semiconducting or insulating effect. In other words, a building material for electronic parts could be obtained from the resulting by-product, making the process more efficient.
The result: The by-product can be used for optoelectronic components, electrochemical electrodes and even as a filler for the mechanical reinforcement of textiles.
So will people of the future have PCs with components made from Mars plaster on their desks? This is still up in the air at the moment.
Gypsum as a building material
Gypsum is an important raw material for humanity, and not just on Mars. Impressive figures from the study show how important gypsum is on earth. In 2022, more than 150 million tons of gypsum were mined and processed.
In the USA, the gypsum market is expected to be worth $14 billion by 2033. Although gypsum is not mined on earth to produce water, it plays an important role in construction. It is about including gypsum wall panels or gypsum plaster.
Gypsum in Europey – The mining of gypsum is currently a hot topic not only on Mars, but also in Europey:
Link to Twitter content
In Europey, according to ZDF, only 40% of gypsum is allowed to come from the earth. Gypsum from coal-fired power plants – the byproduct of which is synthetic gypsum – has been eliminated since the coal phase-out. There is currently a risk of a bottleneck.
Do you want to read more science texts? No joke: Possibly the oldest calculation error in the world happened 5,000 years ago and has to do with beer.
PCs with Mars plaster components are a crazy idea. But it gets even worse and this computer already exists: Did you know that there are PCs that work with human brains?
What do you think about the plaster idea on Mars? Do you find such Mars topics exciting and would you like to read more about them in the future? When do you think it will be possible for humanity to expand? Do you think that such inventions or discoveries will accelerate the colonization of Mars? Feel free to write us your thoughts in the comments.
