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Ever since humans first ventured beyond Earth, the quest to efficiently and reliably produce oxygen in space has remained one of space exploration’s most persistent hurdles. A team of researchers from the Center of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM) at the University of Bremen, the University of Warwick and the Georgia Institute of Technology, has found a way to make oxygen production lighter, easier, and more sustainable — using magnetism. The team described their system and demonstrated its effectiveness in a recent article in Nature Chemistry.
The common way to produce oxygen in space is by water electrolysis, a process that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen using electrodes immersed in an electrolyte. In the weightlessness of orbit, however, gas bubbles do not float upwards. Instead, they tend to stick to the electrodes and remain suspended in the liquid, making the process much more difficult and energetically costly than on Earth. In order to separate the gas bubbles from the liquid and extract the oxygen, a variety of methods can be used. Currently, astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) rely on a complex, bulky and power-hungry fluid management system that requires frequent maintenance and a number of spare components. This makes the system impractical for long-duration missions, where every kilogram of equipment is critical during launch and every watt of power matters once in space.
The solution: magnetism.
An international team of scientists from the Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Warwick, and ZARM was able to demonstrate that magnetic fields can support the separation of gas bubbles from electrodes in microgravity. Using off-the-shelf permanent magnets, the research team developed a passive phase separation system that pushes the bubbles away from the electrodes and collects them at designated spots. To achieve this breakthrough, the team developed two complementary approaches. The first takes advantage of how water naturally responds to magnets in microgravity, guiding gas bubbles toward collection points. The second method uses magnetohydrodynamic forces, which arise from the interaction between magnetic fields and electric currents generated by electrolysis. This creates a spinning motion in the liquid that separates gas bubbles from water through convective effects – achieving phase separation similar to mechanical centrifuges used on the ISS, but using magnetic forces instead of mechanical rotation.
The findings published today are the result of four years of joint research. Álvaro Romero-Calvo from Georgia Tech came up with the original idea and performed the calculations and numerical simulations as early as 2022. He then continued to develop a system for splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen using magnetic effects. To prove and quantify the theory in electro- and photoelectrochemical setups, the team of Katharina Brinkert (University of Warwick until 2024, now ZARM) developed experiments and devices to be tested in microgravity. “We were able to prove that we do not need centrifuges or any mechanical moving parts for separating the produced hydrogen and oxygen from the liquid electrolyte. We do not even need additional power. Instead, it’s a completely passive, low-maintenance system” explains Katharina Brinkert. Ömer Akay was responsible for carrying out the experiments in the microgravity lab of ZARM, the Bremen Drop Tower in Germany, and for compiling all information gathered for the publication: “Our developed cells allow the production of hydrogen and oxygen from water electrolysis in microgravity at nearly terrestrial efficiencies.”
Successful tests in microgravity:
The experiments confirmed that magnetic forces can improve gas bubble detachment and movement and enhance the efficiency of the electrochemical cells by up to 240 percent. This breakthrough solves a long-standing spaceflight engineering problem and opens the door to developing simpler, more robust, and more sustainable life support systems for human space exploration. The next step for the team is to further validate the system through suborbital rocket flights.
The project is funded by the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the European Space Agency (ESA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Katharina Brinkert (Co-Director of ZARM and head of the research team “Photoelectrocatalysis”)
katharina.brinkert(at)zarm.uni-bremen.de
Ömer Akay
oemer.akay(at)zarm.uni-bremen.de
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41557-025-01890-0
DOI:10.1038/s41557-025-01890-0.
https://YouTube-Short: https://youtube.com/shorts/uuFD7nLq5Ak?si=0XaS00Wo-gVgwS_2
Ömer Akay was responsible for carrying out the experiments at the Bremen Drop Tower.
Copyright: ZARM, Universität Bremen
Criteria of this press release:
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Chemistry, Electrical engineering, Physics / astronomy
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