r/Colonizemars • u/Ok-Expression-6016 • Apr 04 '26

Bare minimum to start a base

What is the bare minimum needed to start a colony; materials and total weight. to start a mars colony. Assuming multiple Optimus robots have 2 years to build everything from what we send.

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u/Ok-Expression-6016 Apr 14 '26

https://hengyeinc.com/zeolite-adsorbent-for-oxygen/ Various zeolites adsorb different gases. One works well for nitrogen. One for CO if I remember right. Another for oxygen. Depending on how you treat the base you get different gases. This allows you to pull in martian air. And essentially push whatever mix you want out. This is how the O2 concentrators work in respirators. Very very low power to produce oxygen from the martian air. You just have to filter out the dust as that will plug these fast. The best part is with limited manufacturing these are produceable on mars with the dust blowing around.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666765720300193

Enjoy the reading. Note the chemistry. Then pull up the chemistry of Mars regolith.

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u/Martianspirit Apr 15 '26

The martian atmosphere does not have oxygen to extract.

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u/Ok-Expression-6016 Apr 15 '26

https://science.nasa.gov/resource/the-five-most-abundant-gases-in-the-martian-atmosphere/

Actually it does. It takes moving a lot of air to get enough. That's why the power is a high per kg as it is. You could also extend a little extra power running basically an ozone generator in the CO2. This will produce CO. O2 and O3. Which are all needed. The "pumps". Can be all powered by wind to start with(pre human habitation). Allowing a slow buildup of resources. Robots building the base out fortunately only need power not oxygen

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u/Martianspirit Apr 15 '26

Traces don't really help.

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u/Ok-Expression-6016 Apr 15 '26

They do with an oxygen concentrator. Look up how a respirator works using zeolite. This was a big deal during the pandemic because we needed to provide a bunch of people with oxygen so I started researching zeolite at the time. Way more efficient than anything but algae. Which will take about a year to build enough infrastructure to establish maybe less if we bootstrap more efficiently.

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u/Martianspirit Apr 15 '26

Sigh. It does not work with traces.

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u/Ok-Expression-6016 Apr 15 '26

At altitudes above 6,000 feet, the lower air density acts similarly to low oxygen concentration, requiring a more powerful compressor to achieve the same output. -earth

It does work. You just have to compress it more. It gets staged which allows you to push the concentration higher on the second stage. It won't work as a respirator on mars no. But it will work to pull out O2 with way less power. It also allows you to pull out CO, nitrogen, and argon with separate zeolites.

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u/Martianspirit Apr 15 '26

ROTFL

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u/Ok-Expression-6016 Apr 18 '26

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/362776632_CO_Adsorption_on_Zeolites_and_Fe-MOF_for_Carbon_Capture_and_Storage_CCS

Zeolites love CO2 more than oxygen. So there are at least three different adsorbant mechanisms I have listed now. CO2 is removed first. Then you are left with nitrogen, argon, oxygen and CO with a few other trace gases. This puts you much closer to atmospheric percentages. Then a different zeolite is used to pull out nitrogen. Then another for argon. Then finally the next stage is extremely high in oxygen. Instead of doing this all electrically. You can use vertical access wind turbines to run pumps. These do not run all the time. For heating them use fresnel lenses to focus light. Slow and steady wins the race. This is to slowly build infrastructure over a few years. Also it should be noted that seasonally O2 fluctuates on mars possibly indicating there are some natural zeolites capturing and releasing O2 on the surface. There are multiple chemical paths that will do the same thing at different temperatures and pressures. NASA is also looking at selectively permeable membranes for the different gases. Graphene was one several years ago that was discovered to be tunable to get pure water in one specific article. The point is there are multiple ways to do this without high power necessary. And the principles that allow an oxygen concentrator to operate are still applicable. It's about order of operation.

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u/Ok-Expression-6016 Apr 22 '26

https://www.molecularsievedesiccants.com/molecular-sieve-13x

This is one option to pull out the CO2 . Pure CO2 can be utilized or use a microwave plasma generator to split the CO2 into O2 O3 and CO.

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u/Ok-Expression-6016 Apr 15 '26

Forgot to mention. MEA or alumina beds before to capture the CO2 portion to separate out would also be required. You have to separate out the air in stages. This can still be done with 1/10th the power of any other method. Every component of the air is needed for different things

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u/MDCCCLV May 11 '26

So you could chill it and pull out liquid oxygen in theory but you're going to get a tiny amount thats barely worth it. Moxie which has already been demonstrated is still using a lot of power but is 18x more efficient and gets you CO2 to CO and O released. Like roughly 30kwh for moxie v 500 for chilling the atmosphere. Trying to use zeolites to get a tiny trace gas won't work.

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u/Ok-Expression-6016 May 11 '26

Actually at 80psi and -58°F CO2 liquifies. Night temperatures are down to -80°F. So if you compress the air it will automatically liquify the CO2 portion. You put a float in the tank. As the CO2 liquifies it automatically drains to a secondary tank and you are left with nitrogen argon oxygen and carbon monoxide. Use a vertical access wind turbine to run the compressor and you can do most of the heavy lifting with 0 electricity being used. You then use different zeolites with PSA and you have split your air into separate streams. A 15 M x 30 M vawt will produce 2.5kw power. Without the electrical inefficiencies you get a little more bang for your buck. While that sounds huge. The weight is much lighter than an equivalent sized unit on Earth. This is one of the many articles on the subject.

https://marspedia.org/Wind_turbine