Okay, so here are the plans for the refining module.
Essentially, after the gathering of Regolith, the Refining module will bring the initial raw material into a vacuum chamber after grinding it down to a uniform powder. After the chamber has been shut, the ore is exposed to very large quantities of heat through either microwaves, lasers, sunlight or a dedicated heating mantle.
Due to the nature of vacuums, the Lunar Regolith will then begin sublimating, with different materials evaporating off of the lunar rock at various temperatures. Essentially, we distil the Regolith like alcohol.
(sources:) (
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20070014929/downloads/20070014929.pdf)
(
https://www.solarpaces.org/solar-vacuum-pyrolysis-leverages-the-lunar-vacuum-to-mine-oxygen)
(
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094576524004399#bb12)
Thusly, the heating chamber will open up to different chambers relevant to the corresponding metal being sublimated, resulting in solid metal formations in these chambers. Any Lunar Regolith can be used this way.
Afterwards, any slag that is left behind will be rich in metals with very high sublimation temperatures, likely rare-earth metals. The large amounts of calcium metal extracted from the Regolith can afterwards be used to get these REMs using a reduction process. Basically, making calcium Thermite and burning the slag in it, getting the metal out, and doing it again and again until there is nothing left and you've elementally sorted the leftover slag fully and sublimated the REM metals for purity.
This is a very energy-heavy process, but it can create basically EVERY single material on site.
