The research team, led by James E. Johnson together with George F. Sowers and Angel Abbud-Madrid, built its assessment around two of the most mature habitation elements planned for NASA’s Moon Base: the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Pressurized Rover and the Italian Space Agency’s Multi-Purpose Habitation module. Both concepts have advanced into preliminary design, making them credible candidates for the earliest human outposts on the surface. Because these elements face strict limits on mass, power, thermal control, and internal volume, they are expected to fly with open-loop, non-regenerative life support systems rather than the water-recycling and oxygen-recovery hardware used on the International Space Station. That design choice means every breath and every liter of hygiene water must be shipped from Earth, at least until local production comes online.

To quantify what that dependence costs, the researchers modeled consumable demand across minimum, baseline, and maximum mission architectures, varying crew size from two to four, mission duration, and the frequency of extravehicular activities. Demand drivers included metabolic oxygen consumption, drinking and food preparation water, hygiene and flush water, cabin leakage, and, critically, the gas lost every time an airlock is cycled for a spacewalk. Using the ideal gas law and Dalton’s law for a two-gas atmosphere, the team calculated the mass of oxygen and nitrogen expelled during each repressurization event, a contribution that earlier studies had overlooked. The result was a baseline oxygen demand 175 percent higher than prior estimates that counted only metabolic use, while baseline water demand came in 45 percent lower than earlier work because it excluded crew showers, a capability abandoned in human spaceflight since the Skylab era.

The analysis then confronted a problem that dominates the economics of shipping anything to the Moon: containment and packaging. Drawing on International Space Station logistics, the study accounted for high-pressure gas tanks for oxygen, contingency water carriers for water, and the soft-sided, foam-lined cargo transfer bags in which both are packed for transit. These containers add enormous overhead. For oxygen, tanks and packaging inflate delivered mass by roughly 229 percent above the raw consumable demand, compared with about 21 percent for water. Because carriers are assumed to be filled to capacity regardless of exact demand, excess consumables ride along as operational reserves, further increasing the mass that must be launched, landed, and handled on the surface. This packaging penalty, the authors emphasize, is the primary reason Earth-based resupply is so inefficient for early habitation.

With demand and delivered mass established, the team estimated lifecycle costs using three independent parametric approaches: NASA’s Advanced Missions Cost Model, a regression-based tool built from more than 260 historical spaceflight projects; NASA’s Project Cost Estimating Capability, which applies cost-estimating relationships within a system-level work breakdown structure; and a simplified industry-based method using heuristic cost factors of $63,000 per kilogram for development and $25,200 per kilogram for flight unit production, adjusted to fiscal year 2026 dollars and coupled with a 90 percent learning curve. Delivery costs were fixed at $100,000 per kilogram, a figure consistent with SpaceX’s most recent projection for lunar surface delivery and far below the roughly $1 million per kilogram implied by current Commercial Lunar Payload Services contracts. Operations costs were applied as a wrap factor of 5.5 percent of development and production costs per year, a deliberately conservative lower bound drawn from published ranges.

Normalizing the median lifecycle cost by delivered consumable mass produced the study’s headline numbers: approximately $286,000 per kilogram for oxygen, roughly $121,000 per kilogram for water, and about $185,000 per kilogram for a combined oxygen-and-water resupply architecture. Oxygen’s premium, more than twice that of water despite lower demand by mass, reflects the brutal efficiency of its packaging, since high-pressure tanks weigh far more relative to the gas they carry than water bags do. The authors note that these figures represent the maximum price a government habitation customer might rationally pay for lunar-derived consumables before preferring Earth resupply, and they caution that the estimates may even be conservative because supporting infrastructure such as pressurized transport systems was not included.

Against these values, the researchers compared three pilot-scale ISRU concepts: a water ice plant that electrolyzes extracted ice, a carbothermal reduction system that processes regolith, and a molten salt electrolysis system that extracts oxygen directly from regolith. Each was sized for roughly 1,000 kilograms of oxygen production per year, with subsystem-level adjustments for habitation service, such as removing liquefaction hardware, adding high-pressure compression for spacesuit recharge, and including a water processor assembly when potable water must be delivered. The comparison revealed a clear economy-of-scale effect: in all but the highest demand scenarios, Earth resupply remains cheaper, but as mission cadence and crew size grow, ISRU production costs fall per kilogram and become competitive, particularly for oxygen. A single water ice or carbothermal pilot plant can meet per-mission oxygen and water demand in nearly all modeled cases, and a 50 percent reduction in assumed recurring spares mass would improve ISRU competitiveness by up to $65 million in lifecycle cost.

The strategic implications extend well beyond a single contract. Previous propulsion-focused ISRU business cases assumed lunar oxygen could command only $500 to $35,000 per kilogram when sold as oxidizer to vehicles operating in cislunar space. A habitation customer standing on the lunar surface, by contrast, is expected to pay an order of magnitude or more than those figures because of the crushing logistical penalties of Earth resupply. The authors argue that this near-term, small-volume market could serve as the catalyst that funds the first ISRU demonstrations, builds operational experience, and reduces technical risk in advance of the much larger propellant market, which some analyses project could approach a $63 billion valuation by 2040. NASA’s own Moon Base planning anticipates ISRU experimentation through 2032 with scalable production beginning around 2033, a timeline that aligns closely with the emergence of the habitation demand modeled in this study.

The study also acknowledges important uncertainties. The Advanced Missions Cost Model, rooted in government programs predating 1999, produced estimates 23 to 48 percent higher than the other two approaches, reflecting the cost reductions achieved through fixed-price contracting, reusability, and additive manufacturing in the commercial era. The pace at which early missions evolve toward larger crews, aggregated habitats, and regenerative life support systems remains uncertain, dependent on technology development, mission success, funding, and geopolitical factors. If future habitats add water recovery approaching 98 percent efficiency, the demand picture would shift substantially, though the authors show their methodology can be extended to those architectures. Comparable analyses could also be applied to China’s International Lunar Research Station once detailed designs become available.

What emerges is a compelling and surprisingly practical vision for the first lunar economy. Rather than waiting for a sprawling propellant infrastructure that may take decades to materialize, entrepreneurs and space agencies now have a quantified, near-term target: small habitats on the Moon that will pay hundreds of thousands of dollars per kilogram for oxygen and water if someone can produce them locally. The extrinsic benefits, including risk reduction, technology maturation, and first-to-market advantage, may further attract venture capital and public-private partnerships. If pilot-scale ISRU systems can deliver consumables at a lower lifecycle cost per kilogram than Earth resupply, the path to a sustained lunar economy may begin not with rockets refueling at depots, but with a modest plant quietly making breathable air and clean water for the crews who live there.

Subject of Research: Lifecycle cost valuation of lunar-derived oxygen and water for early Moon Base habitation as an initial market for in-situ resource utilization

Article Title: The value of lunar-derived oxygen and water for an early habitation customer

Article References: Johnson, J. E., Sowers, G. F., & Abbud-Madrid, A. (2026). The value of lunar-derived oxygen and water for an early habitation customer. Space and Planetary Resources, 2(1), Article 12. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44461-026-00017-8

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44461-026-00017-8

Keywords: in-situ resource utilization, lunar habitation, Moon Base, oxygen and water demand, lifecycle cost analysis, space logistics, cislunar economy, lunar ISRU, NASA Artemis, pilot plant, space resources, lunar economy

The chemicals at the heart of the work matter far beyond the laboratory. Dimethyl carbonate, or DMC, is a low-toxicity, biodegradable solvent with a growing role as an electrolyte component in lithium-ion batteries, whose demand is rising in step with global electrification. It is also the key intermediate for phosgene-free polycarbonate synthesis. Diphenyl carbonate, or DPC, is the canonical carbonate donor for making polycarbonate from bisphenol-A without the phosgene chemistry that has long plagued the industry with toxicity concerns and chlorinated waste streams. If captured CO2 can be converted into these molecules at scale, hard-to-abate sectors such as cement and steel, whose process emissions are largely unavoidable, would gain one of the few credible pathways toward deep emission reductions.

The research team, led by Namgyu Son and Sukyong Jung of the Research Institute of Industrial Science and Technology together with colleagues from Soulbrain, attacked the problem in two linked stages. In the first, urea itself is made from CO2 and ammonia, and the urea is then reacted with methanol over a zirconium-based catalyst to produce DMC. In the second stage, DMC is transesterified with phenol to make DPC. Both routes share a fundamental thermodynamic obstacle: they generate by-products, ammonia in one case and methanol in the other, that push the reactions backward. The entire process design therefore revolves around reaction-separation coupling, continuously stripping the by-products out of the reaction zone so the equilibrium must keep marching forward.

A crucial and often overlooked discovery concerned the catalyst itself. The researchers prepared zirconium precursors from three different commercial suppliers and found that, after identical drying treatments, the materials evolved into different crystallographic phases. Precursors from two suppliers converged to an amorphous, poorly crystalline Zr(OH)2(NO3)2-like network rich in accessible catalytic sites, achieving roughly 85 to 88 percent conversion in batch tests. A third supplier’s material retained a more highly hydrated crystalline phase and delivered only about 52 percent conversion. The lesson is stark: the hydration state and short-range order of the zirconium precursor, governed by supplier lot and drying history, directly determine catalytic performance, and controlling that drying protocol is essential for reproducible industrial operation.

With the high-activity catalyst in hand, the DMC pilot train ran three continuous campaigns totaling 211 hours. Two shorter campaigns focused on start-up stabilization and operating-window optimization, while the third delivered an extended 150-hour run. The reactors, two jacketed stirred packed vessels in series maintained at roughly 190 degrees Celsius and 3 to 5 bar, converted methyl carbamate intermediate into DMC while venting ammonia continuously. Across all three campaigns the plant produced 570.5 kilograms of DMC from 442.3 kilograms of urea, an overall yield of 85.9 percent relative to the 663.9-kilogram theoretical maximum. Productivity was remarkably consistent, averaging 2.70 kilograms per hour with campaign-to-campaign variation of less than six percent.

The product quality was the showstopper. Gas chromatography confirmed 99.93 percent purity, and the water content of 30 to 50 parts per million sits just above the battery-electrolyte specification but is easily removed by routine drying. Most remarkably, when the pilot DMC was formulated into a 1.2 M LiPF6 electrolyte and cycled 400 times in R2032 coin cells with NCM811 cathodes and graphite anodes at 45 degrees Celsius, capacity retention was 85.1 percent versus 84.9 percent for commercial battery-grade DMC. Coulombic efficiency, impedance, and initial efficiency showed no statistically significant differences. In plain terms, a solvent made from captured carbon dioxide performed indistinguishably from the fossil-derived benchmark in one of the most demanding commercial applications.

The second train tackled an even harder equilibrium problem. In batch testing at 200 degrees Celsius with lead oxide catalyst, phenol and DMC reached only about 45 percent phenol conversion, because the intermediate phenyl methyl carbonate accumulates and the second transesterification step is thermodynamically unfavorable. When the team added continuous methanol removal using a reflux configuration, a single batch test leapt to 86 percent conversion and roughly 85 percent DPC yield. That insight drove the pilot design: a fixed-bed PbO reactor at 195 to 200 degrees Celsius coupled directly to a distillation column that strips methanol overhead while recycled phenol returns to the feed, with a pressure step-down helping vaporize the methanol as it forms.

The DPC pilot then ran for roughly 180 hours of steady production following a 20-hour stabilization period, consuming 180.2 kilograms of phenol and 201.8 kilograms of DMC. Phenol conversion remained essentially quantitative throughout, a direct consequence of feeding phenol as the limiting reactant while continuously removing methanol to pull the equilibrium toward product. The final DPC yield, however, was 32.1 percent of the 204.98-kilogram theoretical limit, with 65.8 kilograms collected including an estimated 10.5 kilograms of in-equipment hold-up. Post-run inspection revealed the culprit: substantial quantities of the intermediate phenyl methyl carbonate and polymeric high-boiling residues trapped within the reactor and piping rather than appearing in the product stream. Recovering and reworking these hold-ups is identified as the clearest lever for yield intensification, alongside stronger methanol-removal driving forces and additional reaction stages dedicated to converting PMC into DPC.

The DPC product itself met polymer-grade requirements. Gas chromatography found no residual DMC and no distinct impurity peaks, and trial polymerization with bisphenol-A yielded polycarbonate with a relative viscosity of at least 0.5, comparable to material made from commercial phosgene-route DPC. A caveat remains on the catalyst: lead oxide is toxic, and although no bed plugging or pressure-drop anomalies occurred during the campaign, polymeric films on catalyst surfaces are known to progressively block active sites over longer horizons. Because in-situ regeneration risks lead leaching and creates hazardous waste streams, the team is already developing low-lead PbO-MgO formulations containing only 5 to 10 percent PbO, and in parallel pursuing entirely lead-free alternatives such as Mo-MgO and other non-toxic metal-oxide and solid-acid systems.

Taken together, the two trains sketch out something approaching a blueprint for sustainable carbonate manufacturing. Stable temperature and pressure profiles, controlled reflux ratios, column pressure drops within target bounds, and closed material balances over hundreds of hours demonstrate that this is not a laboratory curiosity but a technically feasible process architecture. The researchers frame the next phase clearly: integrate the DMC and DPC trains with polycarbonate production to realize a fully non-phosgene CO2-to-DMC-to-DPC-to-PC chain, valorize the ammonia by-product from the DMC route, and extend catalyst lifetimes through lower-toxicity formulations. For a chemical industry searching for practical ways to turn its largest liability into feedstock, this pilot-scale demonstration provides exactly the kind of long-duration, specification-compliant evidence that scale-up decisions demand.

Subject of Research: Pilot-scale continuous production of CO2-derived dimethyl carbonate and diphenyl carbonate via integrated reaction-separation coupling

Article Title: CO₂-to-carbonates via reaction–separation coupling: pilot performance of continuous DMC/DPC

Article References: Son, N., Jung, S., Jung, W., Lee, G. M., Kim, J., Yun, J. C., & Lee, S. H. (2025). CO₂-to-carbonates via reaction–separation coupling: pilot performance of continuous DMC/DPC. Advances in Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, 1(1), Article 39. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44405-025-00039-4

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44405-025-00039-4

Keywords: carbon capture and utilization, dimethyl carbonate, diphenyl carbonate, urea methanolysis, transesterification, zirconium catalyst, lead oxide catalyst, reactive distillation, lithium-ion battery electrolyte, polycarbonate, pilot plant, non-phosgene process