Dust presents a major headache for lunar explorers, but new research suggests compressed liquid nitrogen could be used to clear much of it aside.
“Moon dust is electrostatically charged, abrasive and gets everywhere, making it a very difficult substance to deal with,” said Ian Wells in a Washington State University. Wells is the first author on the paper and a student in Washington State University’s School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering. “You end up with a fine layer of dust as a minimum just covering everything.”
The liquid nitrogen spray forgoes the use of physical abrasion in favor of the Leidenfrost effect, which is most commonly seen when a bubble of cold water dancesinsulated from the hot surface by a layer of vapor underneath it. Wells and his colleagues say that the spray works in a similar fashion; t he cold liquid nitrogen beads up on the warmer spacesuit, enveloping the dust particles before floating off the surface of the fabric.A Barbie doll stands in for a lunar astronaut and is covered in simulated Moon dust before cleaning , the doll after sweeping motions with the spray and after spot treatments .but it is also incredibly sharp—it can actually create small tears in space suits and boots and even cause health issues.
The researchers obviously don’t know how this spray will function inside a lunar lander parked on the Moon, where gravity is about 16.6% that of Earth’s. Also, this cleaning technology would require sprayers and canisters engineered for spaceflight, and missions having to include extra shipments of liquid nitrogen. With all that said, the pros appear to outweigh the cons, making the liquid nitrogen cleaning technique a worthwhile investment for future missions to the Moon.
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