Moon dust and recycled materials could help insulate future lunar habitats

Skip to content Home Articles Topics Faculty and Staff News Research News Media Resources Media Contacts Newsletter Sign-up Moon dust and recycled materials could help insulate future lunar habitats Purdue researchers Alexander Wei, right, and Jacob Staker hold the aerogels that they created using materials and methods that could be generated and sustained on the moon. (Purdue University photo/John Underwood) November 10, 2026 Lindsey Macdonald WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.

— People living on the moon may seem like science fiction, but major U.S. labs and agencies are actively working toward building lunar habitats. Making those habitats livable will require solutions for extreme temperatures, limited resources and the handling of waste generated by long-term human missions.

To combat these challenges, Alexander Wei and Jacob Staker, researchers in Purdue University’s College of Science , are developing methods to create aerogels — ultralight insulating materials — using components that could be generated on the moon. Aerogels are used as insulation in a variety of industrial and commercial applications, including spacecraft, buildings and electric vehicles.

“Sustaining a long-term presence on the moon will require us to rethink how we use local resources,” said Wei, a professor in the James Tarpo Jr. and Margaret Tarpo Department of Chemistry . “Rather than relying on Earth to supply everything we need, we’re exploring how materials already available on the moon, including waste generated by its inhabitants, could be upcycled into something essential for safe and livable habitats.” To test this approach, commonly referred to as in situ resource utilization, Wei and Staker are developing aerogels made from a combination of cellulose — a natural fiber that can be derived from paper or cardboard waste — and lunar regolith simulant, a material that is chemically and mineralogically similar to lunar soil or moon dust.

Their results were recently published in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering . Temperatures on the moon can reach up to 260 degrees Fahrenheit during lunar daylight and then plummet to minus 280 degrees Fahrenheit at night, making insulation a key component to any lunar habitat or structure.

Aerogels are excellent insulators because their structure can support up to 99% empty space, leaving little solid material through which heat can travel. Those empty spaces are filled with air on Earth but become a vacuum on the moon and hardly conduct heat compared with a dense material, thereby reducing heat transfer.

Staker, a graduate researcher, compares aerogels in the vacuum of space to insulated water bottles: “Imagine an aerogel as a high-tech thermos for a lunar base. Most of it consists of empty space that insulates the interior, helping it maintain the temperature of what’s inside. Covering lunar habitats with a layer of aerogel helps to protect them from the moon’s harsh temperature swings.” Wei and Staker chose cellulose and lunar regolith simulant as the main components of their aerogels because of their availability and physical properties.

The regolith that Wei and Staker use contains mostly orthosilicates and aluminosilicates, minerals that make up much of the moon’s crust. “Once a lunar settlement is established, inhabitants will naturally generate cellulose-rich waste that accumulates from paper or cardboard packaging, or even from lunar agriculture,” Wei said.

“And I can guarantee that astronauts on the moon will never run out of moon dust.” Simple manufacturing processes could turn lunar resources into insulation The regolith, cellulose fibers from shredded paper and water are ground up in a planetary ball mill with the assistance of heavy ceramic balls.

The materials can be ground easily into fine particles, with the fibrillated cellulose acting as a binder for the final aerogel. Wei said including the regolith in the grinding process is key. The minerals help to break apart the cellulose into tiny, threadlike strands with diameters well below 1 micron.

Known as nanofibrillated cellulose, these ultrafine fibers are essential to increase the surface area and mechanical integrity of the aerogel, enabling the material to deflect heat without crumbling. “The mineral-assisted milling process is attractive because the equipment is relatively simple with low energy requirements, making it compatible with the resource constraints faced on the moon,” Wei said.

Once the material has been ground up and mixed into a slurry, it is frozen and turned into an aerogel. Wei and Staker worked with the high temperature inorganic aerogel group at NASA’s Glenn Research Center to produce the final aerogels using a supercritical dryer. The aerogels are made of cellulose and lunar regolith simulant that are ground together and mixed into a slurry prior to freezing and drying. (Purdue University photo/John Underwood) Supercritical drying is a common industrial method of producing aerogels without shrinking or crumbling during the drying process.

It is widely used to produce high-quality aerogels but is energy-intensive and requires carbon dioxide, which is not readily available on the moon. Instead, Wei and Staker are studying lyophilization, or freeze-drying, for future iterations of aerogel production. Freeze-drying an aerogel works in the same way a person would freeze-dry food: Mixtures of nanofibrillated cellulose and regolith are frozen and placed in a vacuum to remove water through a process called sublimation.

Ice crystals transform directly into vapor without melting, resulting in dehydrated, porous materials. “Freeze-drying is ultimately more practical and sustainable for production on the moon because the equipment is much simpler,” Wei said. “The lunar surface provides a natural vacuum and subfreezing temperatures at night, and the water removed during sublimation can be recovered and reused for a circular manufacturing process.” Lunar resources shape the recipe for effective insulation Wei and Staker prepared a variety of aerogels made with different ratios of regolith and cellulose, with the goal of finding a balance between thermal insulation and mechanical strength.

“We want the aerogel to be lightweight, sturdy and have low thermal conductivity,” Staker said. “By systematically changing the formulation, we can optimize the material ratio to support the best combination of those properties.” They found that aerogels with the lowest cellulose content generally provide the best insulation and lowest density.

Increasing the amount of regolith in the formulations is also desirable because of its great abundance on the moon. However, higher cellulose content improves mechanical properties, resulting in a trade-off between insulation and structural integrity. Wei and Staker are trying to find the right recipe that provides good insulation and enough strength while using resources smartly.

“Rather than trying to make the world’s best aerogel,” Wei said, “we’re looking for the sweet spot where we can get the properties we need with the limited resources we have available.” This research was funded by the Indiana Space Grant Consortium and the National Science Foundation.

Wei and Staker also collaborate with Haiquan Guo and Jamesa Stokes, researchers at NASA’s Glenn Research Center. About Purdue University Purdue University is a research institution ranked among the top 10 public universities in the United States. More than 111,000 students study at Purdue across multiple campuses, including more than 57,000 at our main campus locations in West Lafayette and Indianapolis.

As a land-grant university committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue’s main campus has frozen tuition 14 years in a row, enabling more students than ever to graduate debt-free. Paper Nanofibrillated cellulose-regolith composite aerogels for lunar thermal insulation ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering DOI: 10.1021/acssuschemeng.6c06706