Scientists have created exotic concrete to build buildings on Mars. Reported by the University of Manchester.
In the coming years, humanity plans to establish habitable bases on the Moon and Mars. Their construction will require a lot of materials, and the delivery of goods to such remote places will be very expensive. In this context, scientists are looking for a way to save money by using local resources, including building materials.
Ben Robinson and colleagues suggested path Making exotic concrete from Martian dust. Experiments have shown that potato starch can act as a binder when mixed with imitation Mars dust to create a concrete-like material. During testing, StarCrete showed a compressive strength of 72 MPa, more than twice (32 MPa) of conventional concrete. StarCrete, made from moon dust, was even stronger and could withstand a pressure of 91 MPa.
The scientists calculated that one bag (25 kg) of dried potatoes contains enough starch to produce about half a ton of StarCrete, equivalent to about 213 bricks. By comparison, it takes about 7,500 bricks to build a 3-bedroom house. Additionally, they found that magnesium chloride, a salt that can be mined on the Martian surface, significantly increases StarCrete’s strength. On Earth, such concrete will not work, since it does not have moisture resistance, but on Mars it does not rain, and therefore this disadvantage is negligible.
You can read about what kind of moon base the United States plans to build by 2030. material “socialbites.ca”.