AsianScientist (Jul. 29, 2026) – Imagine astronauts harvesting bowls of fresh rice on the Moon. It may sound like a scene from a science fiction film, but researchers in Japan have taken a major step toward making it possible.
Scientists in Japan have developed a portable device that turns air into fertilizer and have successfully used it to grow rice seedlings in soil designed to mimic the Moon’s surface. The study, published in the journal npj Microgravity, stated that the same technology could also make farming on Earth more sustainable by reducing our dependence on fossil fuel-based fertilizers.
Turning air into plant food
One of the biggest challenges of growing crops on the Moon is the lack of fertile soil. Regolith, or the Moon’s soil, contains no organic material, and essential plant nitrogen sources like ammonia and nitrate are virtually nonexistent.
To solve this problem, researchers from Tohoku University and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) created a green, energy-efficient plasma technology that produces nitrogen fertilizer from atmospheric air and electricity.
The device consumes less than 100 watts of power — about the same as a bright light bulb. It selectively converts nitrogen and oxygen in the air into dinitrogen pentoxide (N₂O₅), a gas that dissolves almost completely in water to form nitrate, a form of nitrogen that plants can readily absorb.
“Our portable plasma device selectively synthesizes dinitrogen pentoxide (N₂O₅) gas from atmospheric air, consuming less than 100 W in the process,” said Toshiro Kaneko, a professor from the Graduate School of Engineering at Tohoku University and co-author of the study. “This plasma-produced gas promptly dissolves in water to generate nitrate (NO₃⁻) with an exceptionally high dissolution efficiency of nearly 100%.”
Helping rice thrive in lunar soil
Kaneko and his colleagues tested whether the N₂O₅-dissolved water could serve as a local nitrogen fertilizer to grow rice seedlings within a lunar regolith simulant.
The results were positive. The nitrate-rich water reduced the lunar regolith simulant’s alkalinity, lowering its pH from 9.09 to a plant-friendly 6.76. This change unlocked important nutrients such as calcium, magnesium and potassium ions that had been trapped in the regolith, making them available for plant roots.
At the same time, the treatment reduced the release of aluminum ions, which can hinder root development. The release of critical minerals and suppression in harmful ones improved rice growth, especially compared to rice grown using pure water alone.
The researchers also found another unexpected benefit. They discovered that the gas helps strengthen plants’ immune systems and controls unwanted traits. Spraying N₂O₅ gas directly onto plant leaves activated critical natural defense pathways that strengthen plant immunity. It also slowed excessive stem growth, producing shorter, sturdier plants which is a useful trait in the Moon’s low-gravity environment, where crops could otherwise become weak and elongated.
Benefits beyond the moon
Kaneko said that whilst the technology is ideally suited for lunar farms, it can also help reduce environmental burdens in agriculture here on Earth.
“The process of producing this fertilizer operates entirely on electricity and low power, completely decoupling nitrogen fixation from fossil fuels, making the technology suitable for sustainable crop production on the Moon and here on Earth,” Kaneko said.
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Source: Research Center for Space Cross-Tech ; Image: Magnific_wirestock
The study can be found at : Plasma nitrogen fixation for future lunar agriculture
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