In a study that was published in the journal Nature, MIT researchers found that a process called molten oxide electrolysis could use iron oxide from the lunar soil to make oxygen in abundance, with no special chemistry.

Using lunar-like soil from Meteor Crater in Arizona, which contains iron oxide from an asteroid impact thousands of years ago, Professor Donald Sadoway, the senior author of the research, said the process was able to produce steel as a byproduct.

Moreover, the resulting steel could be of higher purity, he added, noting the technology may also turn to be cheaper once it is scaled.

Despite the worldwide economic slump, global steel production still grew by 1.2 per cent in 2012 from a year ago to 1.5 billion tonnes, pushed by China and India, the biggest consumers, because of their rapidly expanding urbanization and growing population. The current process uses iron ore - mostly iron oxide - by heating it with carbon, thus giving off carbon dioxide, in tremendously large amounts, as a by-product.

Two tonnes of carbion dioxide is created for every equivalent tonne of steel produced. On those figures, the global steel industry is accountable for 5 per cent of the world's total amount of greenhouse-gas emissions.

Moreover, the same process could be also adapted to produce other metals and alloys such as nickel, titanium and ferromanganese, Dr Sadoway said.

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