OXYGEN EXTRACTION APPARATUS AND PROCESS

摘要

A facility (10) and process capable of extracting oxygen in extraterrestrial environments (100) from materials available in extraterrestrial environments (100), for example, on planets, planetoids, etc. The facility (10) extracts oxygen from a mineral-containing solid material (12) and is configured to form a free-falling molten stream (16) of the solid material (12), evaporate at least a portion of the molten stream (16) and produce a vapor containing gaseous oxygen, create a supersonic stream (22) of the vapor, condense constituents of the supersonic stream (22) to form particulates (28,29) within the supersonic stream (22), separate the gaseous oxygen from the particulates (28,29), and then collect the gaseous oxygen.