Production of binderless bricks from Martian regolith simulants

Abstract

Building a station on Mars would require a huge amount of building material, and one of the most readily available materials is the ubiquitous regolith, which can be used to make building elements based on the principle of in situ resource utilization. In this paper, we discuss the fabrication of binder-free building elements by cold pressing followed by firing from MGS-1, MGS-1C and MGS-1S simulants in the temperature range of 800–1200 °C. The thermal removal of perchlorates, sulphates and carbonates from simulants is also being investigated. The results show that MGS-1C simulant has the best compressive strength with approximately 113 MPa, followed by MGS-1 with 35.9 MPa, and the worst is MGS-1S with 9.1 MPa. It was also confirmed that the simulants can lower the decomposition temperature of perchlorates by up to 100 °C, as observed for Martian regolith by the Curiosity rover. Finally, it was possible to determine the temperatures at which sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide begin to be released in the simulants for heating. © 2026 COSPAR. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies.