Tiny Crystals of Energy Found on the Moon

Estonia’s Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech), and European Space Agency have uncovered that tiny crystals of iron pyrite found on the moon, hundredths of millimeters in size could work as the light-absorbing layer in minuscule solar cells providing a crucial, lunar sourced method of energy generation.

Given that any lunar colony in the equatorial regions will have to contend with weeks of the lunar night each rotation, efficient and effective power generation is a key hurdle the ESA is trying to overcome to make a Lunar colony a reality.

“We’re looking at these microcrystals in the context of future lunar settlement,” explains ESA advanced manufacturing engineer Advenit Makaya. “Future Moon bases will need to ‘live off the land’ in order to be sustainable, and the iron and sulfur needed to produce pyrite could be retrieved from the lunar surface.”

Dr. Taavi Raadik from TalTech explains: “Our aim is to develop technology for pyrite microcrystal growth and to use them in a monograin layer solar cell, where each tiny crystal would work as an individual solar cell. The amount of power generated by one miniscule solar cell is small but in the normal-sized module there would be billions of them – and in principle there is no limitation in terms of their size and shape. Additionally, we have the goal that all necessary source materials should be possible to harvest on the moon in-situ.”

Moon Manufactured Solar Power

The idea is to produce sandpaper-like rolls of the microcrystals using them as a basis for monograin-layer solar cells. With billions upon billions of tiny solar cells collectively producing massive amounts of power. Combine this with the current thought which is to place a settlement in the Southern lunar polar region where certain mountain peaks experience year-round sunlight or ‘peaks of near-eternal light’.

“This is only one of a range of in-situ resource utilization methods that ESA has been researching for the Moon or further afield,” Advenit added.

Interestingly enough, this work could actually reveal a potential profit motive that could bring economic development to a proposed lunar settlement, given that solar cells like these would be crucial for virtually ALL future human expansion into the solar system.