scientists have found that chitin may be the perfect material for building on mars - Designboom

-

for quite a while now, scientists have been developing technologies that explore both the moon and mars. from 3D-printed mars habitats to lunar toilets, news regarding space travel advancements have flooded our streams, having specialist trying to figure out if our species would be able to live and survive in another planet or on our own satellite. in what seems a strong step towards accomplishing this, javier fernandez, a scientist at singapore university of technology and design, has published a study stating that a simple manufacturing technology based on chitin, one of the most ubiquitous organic polymers on earth, could be used to build tools and shelters on mars.

scientists have found that chitin may be the perfect material for building on mars
(main) image by phoenix han
(above) image by péter szabó

with plans to send astronauts again to the moon (NASA’s artemis program) and eventually send crewed missions to mars, the future of space exploration will include extended stays which means we have to build settlements to meet basic human needs. concrete is not an option as it requires large amounts of water not found on these places. but chitin, which is produced and metabolized by organisms across most biological kingdoms, could be the answer.

a primary component of cell walls, chitin can be found in fungi, exoskeletons of arthropods, such as crustaceans and insects, and in the scales of fish and amphibians. in the study, fernandez and colleagues used chemistry for early martian settlement to extract and manufacture a new material with minimal energy requirements and without specialized equipment. the new material resulted from the combination of chitosan with a mineral designed to mimic the properties found on martial soil. they used this chitinous material to create a wrench and a model of a martian habitat. this demonstrated that the material enables the rapid manufacturing of objects in a martian environment, and according to the researches, this approach may be the key to our development as an interplanetary species.

scientists have found that chitin may be the perfect material for building on mars
image by roozbeh eslami

‘against the general perception, bioinspired manufacturing and sustainable materials are not a substituting technology for synthetic polymers, but an enabling technology defining a new paradigm in manufacturing, and allowing to do things that are unachievable by the synthetic counterparts. here we have demonstrated that they are key not only for our sustainability on earth but also for one of the next biggest achievements of humanity: our transformation into an interplanetary species,’ says javier fernandez. ‘the technology was originally developed to create circular ecosystems in urban environments, but due to its efficiency, it is also the most efficient and scalable method to produce materials in a closed artificial ecosystem in the extremely scarce environment of a lifeless planet or satellite.’

juliana neira I designboom

sep 28, 2020



https://ift.tt/36dxuov

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

All In The Family: Maine Mother & Son Charged in Massive Drug Bust

-
Image
corso dog :: Article Creator Woman Hospitalized After Attack By 2 Dogs At Same Edmonton Home Where Boy Died: Lawyer UPDATE: On April 15, 2024, the City of Edmonton provided an update on the fatal attack. It said that prior to the deadly incident on April 1, "the city had no lawful basis to remove the dogs from the home." The city added that "all prior complaints about the dogs involved in this incident were investigated thoroughly and appropriate action was taken in accordance with the applicable legislation." The city also said a review found that its staff "acted appropriately in accordance with our standard practices and in compliance with the relevant legal constraints given the nature of past complaints and reports." A woman was hospitalized after being attacked in February by two large Cane Corso dogs at the same home where an 11-year-old boy was killed last week, the woman's lawyer told Global News. "I
Read more

Rare Frogs And Illegal Drugs - Palisades Hudson Financial Group

-
Image
Colombian conservationist Ivan Lozano has hit on a brilliantly promising strategy to protect his country’s rare and endangered amphibians. His plan: Flood the market with them. Lozano is not hunting rare frogs in Colombia’s Andean forests. He is raising them himself and selling them at prices designed to undercut poachers and smugglers. If he can raise the frogs cheaply enough, and in large enough numbers, he might manage to drive down the market price to the point that poachers no longer find it worthwhile to harvest and smuggle the creatures onto the black markets. Lozano told The Associated Press that his company also encourages collectors to breed their own frogs. Picture yourself as a poacher. If the government toughens the legal penalties and steps up enforcement, you will shrug your shoulders; legal risks are a basic cost of doing business. Since the demand for your product already exists among foreign collectors and other buyers, tougher enforcement merely reduces supply a
Read more

Burn scars, winter storms threaten rare and endangered species in San Gabriel Mountains - The Bakersfield Californian

-
Image
LOS ANGELES — Up until a few weeks ago, the West Fork of the San Gabriel River was one of the most abundant wildlife habitats in Los Angeles County, a secluded and rugged area defined by its steep peaks, lush canyons and mixture of rare and endangered species. Recently however, a team of federal biologists and forest rangers was aghast when it visited the stream following the Bobcat fire, which has burned more than 115,000 acres in the heart of the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument. Terrain that once resembled a High Sierra granite gorge now looked like ground zero after a nuclear explosion, and the usually clean mountain air was sharp with the stench of smoke. Particularly unsettling were the bare and ashen slopes that were now primed to dissolve under pounding winter storms. A heavy mudslide, experts said, could reverse decades of conservation efforts by inundating the last outposts for such federally protected species as the Santa Ana sucker fish and Southern California m
Read more