Inorganic–Organic Hybrid of Lunar Soil Simulant and Polyethylene

Abstract

Inorganic–organic hybrid (IOH) lunar cements are processed by using a lunar soil simulant and polyethylene (PE). As the inorganic simulant grains are strongly held together by the PE binder, the IOH may be utilized as an infrastructural material on the lunar surface. With a uniform simulant grain size, the flexural strength of the IOH decreases exponentially with the binder content, quite close to the strength of samples of random simulant grain-size distribution. If the simulant grains have a two-step size gradation, the IOH strength increases significantly. Above a threshold binder content, the strength decreases only slightly as more simulant grains are added; below the threshold, the IOH becomes much weaker as less binder is used.