Regolith Ice Plasma Purifier for Lunar Exploration (RIPPLE)

Developed by Regolithix Ltd, West Yorkshire.

Dirty lunar ice would be fed into a reactor and heated to a water vapour. The vapour and solid regolith particles are fed into a vortex phase separator – similar to how a salad spinner flings water from lettuce leaves, the vortex flings the solid particles to the edge of the vortex to drop to the bottom while the gas exits from the top. The gas is fed into a plasma torch which breaks it into its constituent parts and a molecular sieve isolates the hydrogen and oxygen for water and fuel.