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Possibly: a 2025 study reported that magnets improved water electrolysis in brief microgravity tests by helping gas bubbles separate from the liquid. The prototypes are not yet a proven oxygen system for astronauts, and they are different from NASA’s MOXIE experiment on Mars.
How magnets could help make oxygen in microgravity
Water electrolysis uses electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. On Earth, gravity helps bubbles rise away from the electrodes. In microgravity, bubbles do not separate in the same familiar way; they can linger near the electrodes and complicate gas collection.
The reported approach combines magnetic effects to move bubbles: magnetohydrodynamic effects encourage them to detach from an electrode, while diamagnetic forces help guide them toward collection areas. The aim is to improve separation without relying on pumps, centrifuges or other moving parts. As study team member Álvaro Romero-Calvo told Chemistry World, “What we’re ultimately trying to do is to separate gas bubbles – oxygen and hydrogen – from the water or the electrolyte, without moving parts or centrifuges or pumps or anything like that,”
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Ö. Akay and colleagues tested two proof-of-concept devices, as reported by Julia Robinson in Chemistry World on 22 August 2025, citing their paper in Nature Chemistry (2025; DOI 10.1038/s41557-025-01890-0). One was a proton-exchange-membrane electrolyser using diamagnetic forces to aid gas collection; the other was a magnetohydrodynamic drive cell designed to create swirling flow and separate gas from liquid.
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- Test conditions: The devices were tested in a Bremen drop tower, with a total of 9.3 seconds of brief free-fall microgravity, according to Chemistry World.
- Reported result: The report says the magnets improved current density by up to 240% in microgravity compared with devices without a magnet. This is a maximum reported current-density improvement in short tests, not a measure of how much extra oxygen a crew could receive or how much a mission-scale plant could produce.
- Performance question: Chemistry World reports current density around 150 mA/cm² for the devices. Electrochemist Mark Symes, quoted in that report, contrasted this with at least 1 A/cm² for a conventional terrestrial electrolyser. That is Symes’s comparison as relayed by the publication, not an independent side-by-side test established here.
Those results do not establish a long-duration crew life-support system, mission-scale production, or safe delivery of purified oxygen separated from hydrogen. Symes also raised questions about oxygen purity and current density. Romero-Calvo told Chemistry World: “In the case of a Mars transit mission, the reliability of the oxygen production system … is still not high enough to support a long-term mission,” The team was reported to be pursuing longer microgravity tests, potentially on a suborbital rocket or in orbit, alongside scale-up work.
How the magnet approach differs from MOXIE
MOXIE and the magnet-assisted prototypes address oxygen production in very different places and from different starting materials. The magnetic study concerns water electrolysis in microgravity, a potential application during a spacecraft journey. MOXIE processed carbon dioxide from Mars’s atmosphere aboard the Perseverance rover.
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| Comparison | Magnet-assisted electrolysis | NASA’s MOXIE |
|---|---|---|
| Feedstock and setting | Water; tested in brief microgravity conditions relevant to transit. | Carbon dioxide drawn from the Martian atmosphere; operated on the Mars surface aboard Perseverance. |
| Separation challenge | Moving oxygen and hydrogen bubbles away from electrodes and collecting them in microgravity. | Processing the carbon-dioxide-rich atmosphere to extract oxygen. |
| Evidence reported | Two prototypes and 9.3 seconds total of drop-tower free fall, as reported by Chemistry World. | NASA reports 16 oxygen-production runs and 122 grams of oxygen overall; peak production was 12 grams per hour at 98% purity or better. |
| Further system work | Longer microgravity tests, scale-up and gas-purity questions remain. | NASA says a future full-scale oxygen system would need oxygen liquefaction and storage and a generator about 100 times larger than the test model. |
MOXIE’s results are demonstrated Mars-surface oxygen production, not evidence that magnets have been tested on Mars. NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy said: “MOXIE’s impressive performance shows that it is feasible to extract oxygen from Mars’ atmosphere – oxygen that could help supply breathable air or rocket propellant to future astronauts,” The two approaches should not be treated as interchangeable: one splits water into hydrogen and oxygen, while the other extracts oxygen from atmospheric carbon dioxide.
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A useful spacecraft life-support unit would need to do more than show a short-term increase in current density. The reported tests do not establish long-duration reliability, mission-scale output, or the purity and handling performance required for crew use. Longer microgravity trials and scale-up would be needed to determine whether the bubble-separation effect holds under extended operation and in a complete system.
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For now, the result is best understood as a promising engineering direction: ordinary magnets may help address a specific obstacle to water electrolysis in microgravity. It is not a demonstration that astronauts can already make their breathing oxygen this way, nor a Mars-surface oxygen experiment.
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