Glow Discharge Techniques for the Production and Acquisition of Oxygen from the Martian Atmosphere

A glow-discharge can be sustained in ambient Mars atmosphere, resulting in the dissociation of carbon dioxide molecules into carbon monoxide and oxygen. If the glow-discharge zone is maintained adjacent to a silver permeation membrane, atomic oxygen, produced by the discharge, can be separated from the other species. Experiments have been conducted to determine the behavior of glow-discharge enhanced oxygen production over a range of temperatures at Mars ambient pressure, in order to assess this approach as a possible low-temperature alternative to mechanical filtration, collection, compression and heating of Mars atmosphere with subsequent electrochemical separation.