For more than two years, Prof. Jacek Katzer and a team of scientists from the University of Warmia and Mazury (UWM) in Olsztyn have been conducting research into the technology of processing regolith to obtain a durable and suitable building material. In the future, it is expected to be used for the construction of lunar bases. 

Regolith is lunar dust, which is abundant on the moon. Researchers from UWM are taking part in a project of the National Science Centre (in consortium with the Space Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the AGH University of Science and Technology in Krakow). Its aim is to attempt to extract regolith from the surface of the Moon and, in the future, to extend our civilisation to other planets in the Solar System.

As Prof. Katzer explains, the scientists’ task is to prepare the technology for producing concrete from regolith. 

“However, this must not be concrete in the ‘earthly’ sense, whose ingredient is water. It is to be geopolymer concrete, or rather lunapolymer concrete, whose binder will not be water, but polymers”, explains Prof Katzer.