Additive Manufacturing of Carbothermally Produced Structural (CarPS) Material from Martian Regolith and Bosch By-Product Carbon Simulants

Stewart, B. C., Shake, P. D., Mujahid, S., Van Iderstine, D., Austin, J., & Rhee, H. (2026). Additive Manufacturing of Carbothermally Produced Structural (CarPS) Material from Martian Regolith and Bosch By-Product Carbon Simulants. Journal of Materials Engineering and Performance. Online, Online.

Abstract

Future crewed missions and eventual long-term habitation of the Martian surface will rely on the ability to produce and repair components and structures on-site with materials sourced from the local environment, i.e., in-situ resource utilization (ISRU). Synergizing additive manufacturing (AM) processes with ISRU techniques satisfies these requirements while also allowing for on-demand, rapid prototyping and net-shape construction. Direct regolith printing of ceramics and elements harvested for metallic material feedstocks has been shown to be viable in the past, and carbothermal reduction (CR) has been a successful endeavor for oxygen (O2) generation thus far. In this study, a mixture of JSC-Mars-1A Martian regolith simulant and carbon (C) was subjected to Laser Powder Bed Fusion (L-PBF) to explore the application of AM and CR simultaneously. The regolith and C sources were characterized prior to constructing samples of feedstock-only and feedstock-C mixture, coined Carbothermally Produced Structural (CarPS) material, for X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS), and compression testing. Results show significantly improved sample build quality in the CarPS samples with a reduction in compressive fracture stress using the same build parameters with evidence of reduced bulk oxygen content.