Effects of Nickel and Manganese on Ductile Iron Utilizing Ionic Liquid Harvested Iron and Bosch Byproduct Carbon

Stewart, B. C., Doude, H., Mujahid, S., Abney, M. B., Edmunson, J. E., Fox, E. T., Jones, J. M., Hill, C. W., Mehan, J. J., El Kadiri, H., & Rhee, H. (2023). Effects of Nickel and Manganese on Ductile Iron Utilizing Ionic Liquid Harvested Iron and Bosch Byproduct Carbon. Acta Astronautica. 204, 16. DOI:10.1016/j.actaastro.2022.12.047.

To ensure the success of surface missions and the eventual habitation of the Lunar and Martian surfaces, construction materials for machine components, tools, plumbing, and more must be considered for the long-term supportability of astronauts. The financial burden of launching these materials from Earth is far too great; therefore, in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) technology will be required. The Martian environment contains numerous elements for producing bulk metal components; however, these elements are almost exclusively found as compounds. The use of ionic liquids (ILs) for elemental metal harvesting is being researched by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) to extract feedstock materials from local regolith and meteorites. Studied at MSFC as a life support system, the Boschprocess produces a byproduct elemental carbon (C) during oxygen (O2) regeneration from metabolic or environmental carbon dioxide (CO2). This study details the refinement of a ductile iron (DI) designed to simulate the combination of IL-harvested iron (IL-Fe) and Bosch C by investigating the effects of Ni and Mn addition on IL-DI properties. Dilatometry was used to evaluate how the properties of the IL-DI might vary when produced in the Martian environment. DIs were cast using commercial elements with C produced via a C formation reactor (C–Fr) at MSFC with microstructural, hardness, and phase diagram analyses completed. Results suggest that the combination of IL-Fe and Bosch C could be a viable means of producing DI alloys in-situ and, with the quantities used here, the use of Ni could be more beneficial to alloy customization than Mn additions for IL-DI alloys.