Production of a set of lunar regolith simulants based on Apollo and Chinese samples

Designing lunar shelters with appropriate construction techniques and in-situ materials is a novel and exciting field where many researchers from different countries are working. The first step in working in this field is producing lunar soil simulants on earth that will serve for improving lunar construction materials, as lunar soils are the only in-situ resources available for lunar constructions. Up to date, 9 countries have produced lunar soil simulants and the last contribution has been made by Tu & BULL;rkiye as expressed in this study. The technique, of which the properties are explained in this publication, enables the determination of simulant to any lunar soil. When the lunar construction materials are of main concern, the mineral and chemical composition of the lunar soils and the simulants are more critical than their certain geotechnical characteristics since the chemical interactions within the material will primarily define the con-struction material's performance. Hence, as an important preliminary step in accurate lunar soil simulant production, this study focuses on the determination and matching of the targeted chemical compositions for lunar soil simulants. For this reason, mineralogical analysis of the samples with XRD and chemical compositions with XRF analysis were determined. A novel method was applied during the deter-mination of the simulant, which kept all lunar soil samples with known characteristics as possible targets instead of employing only one targeted soil sample. This enabled the determination of the mentioned new simulant with best fit to a previously known lunar soil sample, while using an attainable budget. The procedure also enabled producing a simulant to a newcomer, the CE-5 Chinese lunar soil, in a very short time.& COPY; 2023 COSPAR. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Beykent University Scientific Research Projects Coordination Unit [2018-19-BAP-01]This work has been supported by Beykent University Scientific Research Projects Coordination Unit. Project Number: 2018-19-BAP-01, 2021

Turkish Lunar Regolith Simulant TBG-1

18th Biennial International Conference on Engineering, Science, Construction, and Operations in Challenging Environments (Earth and Space) -- APR 25-28, 2022 -- Denver, COBeing terrestrial for so many thousands of years, humanity is now advancing in the direction of being extraterrestrial. Attempts made until now were quite promising, like walking on the Moon, living in stations for very long durations miles away from Earth, sending probes to unimaginable distances in space and bringing them back to Earth, etc. In the coming decades, it is easily predictable that man will spend time on Moon in lunar shelters for periods which cannot be qualified as short visits. This will be followed by going to Mars and other space bodies. Such achievements will be realized thanks to space research conducted in space agencies all around world, especially by countries who can afford huge amounts of money in this field. In fact, space research is a multi-dimensional, multi-disciplinary field where important contributions can be made without having much financial support. Such an approach, evidently, will increase international cooperation in the field, and will help increasing technological and scientific levels of all countries who join this research subject. Designing shelters specially adopted to lunar environmental conditions and finding ways of construction techniques for building them is but a field where many researchers from many countries can attack. A related field is producing lunar soil simulants on Earth and making experiments on them for using lunar soil as the only in situ resource available in construction and for extracting other compounds and elements that will be needed for human survival on Moon. It is to be noted that up to date 9 countries have produced lunar soil simulants and this number is increasing continuously. The last contribution is from Turkey, with the lunar soil simulant labeled TBG-1 about which general information and properties are given in this study.Amer Soc Civil Engineers, Aerosp DivBeykent University, Istanbul [2018-19-BAP-01]This study was supported by the Scientific Research Project 2018-19-BAP-01 of Beykent University, Istanbul

Highly Tunable Nanostructures in a Doubly pH-Responsive Pentablock Terpolymer in Solution and in Thin Films

Multiblock copolymers with charged blocks are complex systems that show great potential for enhancing the structural control of block copolymers. A pentablock terpolymer PMMA-b-PDMAEMA-b-P2VP-b-PDMAEMA-b-PMMA is investigated. It contains two types of midblocks, which are weak cationic polyelectrolytes, namely poly(2-(dimethylamino)ethyl methacrylate) (PDMAEMA) and poly(2-vinylpyridine) (P2VP). Furthermore, these are end-capped with short hydrophobic poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) blocks in dilute aqueous solution and thin films. The self-assembly behavior depends on the degrees of ionization α of the P2VP and PDMAEMA blocks, which are altered in a wide range by varying the pH value. High degrees of ionization of both blocks prevent structure formation, whereas microphase-separated nanostructures form for a partially charged and uncharged state. While in solutions, the nanostructure formation is governed by the dependence of the P2VP block solubility of the and the flexibility of the PDMAEMA blocks on α, in thin films, the dependence of the segregation strength on α is key. Furthermore, the solution state plays a crucial role in the film formation during spin-coating. Overall, both the mixing behavior of the 3 types of blocks and the block sequence, governing the bridging behavior, result in strong variations of the nanostructures and their repeat distances

Micro-Raman and FTIR spectroscopic characterization of the first Turkish lunar regolith simulant

In this work, Infrared and Raman spectroscopic investigations on a new Turkish lunar regolith simulant (TBG-1), Chinese (own product), and Japanese simulants are presented for the first time. Our Raman spectroscopic investigation on TBG-1 simulant implies that it is mainly forsteritic olivine. Moreover, the Chinese sample produced by our group in T & uuml;rkiye showed carbonate peaks at 712 cm-1 and 878 cm-1 in the IR spectra, which were attributed as calcium or sodium carbonates which could be a result of terrestrial weathering. Here, we propose that TBG-1 is close to the composition of lunar highland impact glass in terms of its (Mg, Ca)/Al2O3 ratios. Our effort suggested that our recently produced Turkish simulant is similar to the Apollo 11 lunar soil sample in terms of its Al2O3 and TiO2 composition. Some of the samples we collected to simulate lunar regolith also show similarities to the Apollo 14 samples and JSC-1A simulant produced by NASA

Characterization of 1,7-dibromo-N,N'-(bicyclohexyl)-3,4:9,10-perylendiimide Langmuir-Blodgett film for organic vapor sensing application

1,7-Dibromo-N,N'-(bicyclohexyl)-3,4:9,10-perylendiimide material (FY3) was used as a sensor element in this work. Different number of LB thin film layer was deposited onto a gold-coated glass substrate to produce a thin film sensor element. Fabrication processes were monitored by surface plasmon resonance (SPR) technique. The experimental SPR data were fitted using the Winspall software to evaluate the film thickness and refractive index of this material. Values of the thickness and refractive index of LB films were determined as 0.54 ± 0.01 nm for the thickness per monolayer, and 0.46 ± 0.08 for the refractive index. LB thin film sensor element was exposed to chloroform, benzene, toluene and ethyl alcohol vapors. In-situ SPR measurements showed that the response of the FY3 LB film for saturated chloroform vapor is much larger than the other vapors with 4 s recovery times and 5 s response time. The photodetector response change, ?I rf was monitored when FY3 LB film was exposed to these organic vapors and the response of the FY3 LB film to chloroform was also the largest among organic vapors with the ?I rf value of 0.11 au. It can be proposed that this sensing element deposited onto gold-coated glass substrates has a good sensitivity and selectivity for saturated chloroform vapor. © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved