Ways to get rocket fuel from Mars



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The sun is the key ingredient of BoMax Hydrogen. The company wants to exploit natural enzymes in visible light to produce hydrogen. Deborah Maxwell, Ph.D., leads BoMax's scientific research team, which has three full-time employees.

"We produce pure hydrogen because we use an enzyme," Deborah Maxwell, scientific manager at BoMax, told CNBC.

The BoMax process "isolates the components" and therefore does not require expensive filters, Maxwell said. In addition, she said that the lower pressure on the Martian surface makes the process more efficient, while carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of Mars does not inhibit its process.

"It would be difficult to carry water itself on Mars," Maxwell said. That's why having "access to ice-water on the surface would be beneficial," she said. Instead of having to carry water, "we would carry our stock of animal feed, which is an inexpensive acid," said Maxwell. This raw material would be transported "in a small relative amount," added Maxwell.

The start is in the optimization phase of its five-year plan. BoMax plans to expand its lab later this year and then start manufacturing in 2020.

BoMax is funded in part by a $ 400,000 loan last year from Space Florida, the state's aerospace economic development agency. The company had previously raised $ 1.8 million from private individual investors.

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