Abstract
Reducing alumina from lunar regolith allows in-situ aluminum and oxygen procurement. The Hall-Héroult process, reliant on scarce lunar carbon and being unfeasible, prompts the proposal to ablate alumina with a laser, selectively depositing aluminum onto a recovery plate. Previous experiments and numerical analyses have shown an increase in the aluminum ratio due to laser deposition; however, it has been reported that aluminum was not detected on the deposited layer when an alumina recovery plate is used. To elucidate these phenomena, molecular dynamics simulations were conducted, finding that oxygen moves to the surface of the deposition layer, forming an oxide layer on the deposition layer surface, and beneath that layers with high aluminum ratios are formed. These observational findings are consistent with previous experiments and numerical analyses.
