Testing facilities

ESRIC’s laboratories and testing facilities are located at Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology’s (LIST) premises in Belvaux Luxembourg. Office spaces for staff, contractors and external users associated to the projects are also part of the campus. Dedicated ISRU laboratories support the centre’s activities and provide access to analytical and experimental infrastructure.

In line with the research goal to process regolith and produce oxygen on the Moon, the research facilities have the following capabilities:

• Chemistry and analytical suite: Access to handling and preparation tools for regolith simulants and mineral powders, as well as analytical capabilities for the characterisation of input and output materials, e.g., residual oxygen analysis and particle size analysis.
• End-to-end demonstration suite: The ALCHEMIST-ED fluidized bed reactor for mineral calcination and reduction by hydrogen, as well as three molten-salt electrolysis cells currently being procured by ESA. These demonstrators are hosted at ESRIC in strategic partnership with ESA. Further experimental prototypes for gas purification and microwave processing are developed in-house and in partnership with industry.

Equipment

ESRIC has access to equipment from the Materials Research and Technology department of LIST, located on the same campus, to address certain equipment gaps, in particular related to material analysis.

Over time, additional equipment will be added to the laboratories of ESRIC depending on the evolution of European research needs in this domain and the specific requirements of additional public and private strategic partners of the centre.