Diatom-driven activation of in-situ lunar resource utilization for space farming

Abstract

In this study, we demonstrate that diatoms, through their bioweathering process, can enhance the properties of lunar soil, thereby facilitating the cultivation of crops. Detailedly, diatoms can deconstruct lunar soil minerals to polish the sharp edge of the minerals and release nutrients, and aggregate lunar soil particles for water retention. In addition, diatoms possess a high degree of resilience to space conditions, with the capacity to consume carbon dioxide and release oxygen. Furthermore, they have been observed to utilize human waste as a source of sustenance, thus rendering them a promising candidate for the in situ modification of lunar soil. This study offers valuable insights into the potential for diatoms to contribute to future space habitation and exploration.

Keywords

Diatom / Lunar soil / Bioweathering

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Yuxin Zhang: Writing - review & editing, Project administration, Methodology, Investigation, Funding acquisition, Data curation, Conceptualization. Dong Liu: Writing - review & editing, Writing - original draft, Supervision, Software, Resources, Project administration, Funding acquisition.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgments

We thank Mr. Rongda Yu for his invaluable help with SEM analysis and Prof. Hong Tang (Center for Lunar and Planetary Sciences, Institute of Geochemistry, CAS) for the lunar soil simulant (CLRS-1/CAS-1). This work was supported by Jiangxi Province Technology Innovation Guidance Project (jxsq2023102218); Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangdong Province, China (Grant no. 2023B1212060048).

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