"China Discovers Graphene on the Moon"

From NextBigFuture, June 30:

Discovery of natural few-layer graphene on the Moon They report the discovery and direct microscopy visualization of natural few-layer graphene in the CE-5 lunar soil samples, by utilizing a variety of characterization techniques. Graphene is embedded as individual flakes or formed as part of a carbon shell enclosing the mineral particles. The result reveals one typical structure of indigenous carbon in the Moon, and its formation mechanism has been proposed. This finding may reinvent the understanding of chemical components, geography episodes and the history of the Moon. The graphene is abundant near the metal-containing (including Fe) compound, as also described in the following core-shell structures.

Abundant carbon sources on the moon would be good for future development of the moon and solar systems. This would enable the creation of methane or other carbon based fuel. IF graphene was abundant then it could be good for using graphene to make products on the moon. Graphene is one of the strongest and lightest materials. IF graphene is formed on the moon in a more efficient process then we could learn how to make graphene more efficiently on earth.

The CE-5 lunar regolith was drilled at a depth of ~0.9 m in the northern Oceanus Procellarum at 51.8 degrees west longitude and 43.1 degrees north latitude on the lunar frontal surface on December 1, 2020, which has not been heavily affected by human interference. The sample was recently returned from the moon....

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As L'Institut Polytechnique de Paris points out in their Challenges of Extraterrestrial Mining series  regarding another element (May 2022): 

Helium‑3 from the lunar surface for nuclear fusion? 

Since 1969, the return of a human mis­sion to the Moon has nev­er seemed so close. Although sci­en­tif­ic inter­est con­tin­ued to flour­ish, space pro­grammes had for many decades aban­doned it in favour of the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion and mis­sions to explore the solar sys­tem. Dom­i­nat­ed by the grow­ing com­pe­ti­tion between the Unit­ed States and Chi­na, the return to the Moon is now moti­vat­ed by a desire to study and pos­si­bly exploit resources that can be found there.

Of these, helium‑3 rep­re­sents the most sig­nif­i­cant poten­tial in the field of ener­gy. This non-radioac­tive iso­tope is an ide­al fuel for the oper­a­tion of a fusion reac­tor; it con­sists of fus­ing helium‑3 with deu­teri­um, with the advan­tage of not pro­duc­ing neu­trons. Whilst it is still in its exper­i­men­tal stages, the abil­i­ty to con­tain such ener­gy in the reactor’s con­tain­ment cham­ber could make it a viable ener­gy source.

In Sep­tem­ber 2021 US com­pa­ny, Com­mon­wealth Fusion Sys­tems based in Mass­a­chu­setts, announced the cre­ation of a 20 Tes­la mag­net­ic field using a high-tem­per­a­ture super­con­duct­ing elec­tro­mag­net, which con­sti­tutes a remark­able advance. From this per­spec­tive, the extrac­tion of helium‑3 on the Moon could facil­i­tate the devel­op­ment of this break­through technology.

What is the potential of lunar helium‑3?

As ear­ly as 1988, a NASA report on helium‑3 men­tioned the poten­tial of this iso­tope for use in a nuclear fusion reac­tor1. The­o­ret­i­cal­ly, it offers sev­er­al advan­tages com­pared to cur­rent nuclear pow­er as an abun­dant, low-car­bon ener­gy and no nuclear waste tech­nique. On paper, its advan­tages make it a com­pet­i­tive resource, while this iso­tope is use­ful for oth­er appli­ca­tions includ­ing cryo­gen­ics, quan­tum com­put­ers and MRI lung imag­ing. Also, the Moon is its main reservoir....

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It's not going to be easy.

We have plenty of posts on graphene but this is the first on lunar graphene, naturellement .

On Helium-3:

• "The race to mine the moon is taking off — even though no one’s sure if it’s possible"
• "Mining helium-3 on the Moon has been talked about forever—now a company will try"
• "This company intends to be the first to mine the moon"