After successfully landing on the moon back in 1969, the next target for space researchers and scientists is Mars. As space technology continues to evolve, scientists are now looking to send humans to Mars after scouting the planet with the Perseverence robot. So now, researchers have developed a way to produce a propulsion biofuel on Mars using microbes and a few resources from Earth.
“Carbon dioxide is one of the only resources available on Mars. Knowing that biology is especially good at converting CO2 into useful products makes it a good fit for creating rocket fuel,” Nick Kruyer, the first author of the study and a Ph. D recipient from Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE), said in a statement.
Cyanobacteria (algae) would grow inside the reactors using the photosynthesis process. These algae would be broken down to sugar using enzymes and then they would be fed to the E. coli, which would convert them into rocket propellant. The researchers plan to use advanced separation techniques to separate the propellant from the E. coli fermentation broth.
