Theoretical Study on Thermal Release of Helium-3 in Lunar Ilmenite

Abstract

The in-situ utilization of lunar helium-3 resource is crucial to manned lunar landings and lunar base construction. Ilmenite was selected as the representative mineral which preserves most of the helium-3 in lunar soil. The implantation of helium-3 ions into ilmenite was simulated to figure out the concentration profile of helium-3 trapped in lunar ilmenite. Based on the obtained concentration profile, the thermal release model for molecular dynamics was established to investigate the diffusion and release of helium-3 in ilmenite. The optimal heating temperature, the diffusion coefficient, and the release rate of helium-3 were analyzed. The heating time of helium-3 in lunar ilmenite under actual lunar conditions was also studied using similitude analysis. The results show that after the implantation of helium-3 into lunar ilmenite, it is mainly trapped in vacancies and interstitials of ilmenite crystal and the corresponding concentration profile follows a Gaussian distribution. As the heating temperature rises, the cumulative amounts of released helium-3 increase rapidly at first and then tend to stabilize. The optimal heating temperature of helium-3 is about 1000 K and the corresponding cumulative release amount is about 74%. The diffusion coefficient and activation energy of helium-3 increase with the temperature. When the energy of helium-3 is higher than the binding energy of the ilmenite lattice, the helium-3 is released rapidly on the microscale. Furthermore, when the heating temperature increases, the heating time for thermal release of helium-3 under actual lunar conditions decreases. For the optimal heating temperature of 1000 K, the thermal release time of helium-3 is about 1 s. The research could provide a theoretical basis for in-situ helium-3 resources utilization on the moon.