Title

Tribocharging Lunar Simulant In Vacuum For Electrostatic Beneficiation

Keywords

Beneficiation; Lunar simulant; Triboelectrification

Abstract

Electrostatic beneficiation of lunar regolith has potential application for separating minerals for material processing on the moon. This paper describes the use of tribocharging lunar simulant prior to mineral grain separation. The lunar simulant JSC-1 was sieved into five size fractions: <25μm, 25-50μm, 50-75μm, 75-100μm, >100μm for characterization, however only the 50-75μm fraction was passed through aluminum, copper and polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) inclined plane chargers. The amount of charge acquired by the simulant is dependant upon the difference in the work function of the charging material and the mineral grain composition of the simulant itself. Various charge-to-mass ratios (Q/M) for the different tribocharging materials were obtained for JSC-1 in vacuum as well as in air. XPS, SEM and Raman spectroscopy were used to evaluate the JSC-1 simulant before and after beneficiation. Results indicate notable changes in mineral composition between pre- and post-beneficiation samples after only a single pass through the aluminum inclined plane charger. © 2007 American Institute of Physics.

Publication Date

12-1-2007

Publication Title

AIP Conference Proceedings

Volume

880

Number of Pages

951-956

Document Type

Article; Proceedings Paper

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2437538

Socpus ID

66949146311 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/66949146311

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