Lunarcrete, an idea first proposed by Larry A. Beyer of the University of Pittsburgh in 1985 (see further reading), is a hypothetical aggregate building material, similar to concrete, formed from lunar regolith, that would cut the construction costs of building on the moon.
The production of lunar cement would be an energy-expensive process, estimated to require 2,200 kW h per megatonne. Thus there would need to be significant infrastructure in place before industrial scale production of lunarcrete could be possible.
The casting of lunarcrete would require a pressurized environment, because attempting to cast in a vacuum would simply result in the water, required for the chemical reaction that forms the curing process, evaporating, and the lunarcrete failing to harden. Two solutions to this problem have been proposed: premixing the aggregate and the cement and then using a steam injection process to add the water, or the use of a pressurized concrete fabrication plant that produces pre-cast concrete blocks.
Lunarcrete shares the same lack of tensile strength as Terrestrial concrete. One suggested Lunar equivalent tensioning material for creating pre-stressed concrete is lunar glass, also formed from regolith, much as fiberglass is already sometimes used as a Terrestrial concrete reinforcement material. Another tensioning material, suggested by David Bennett, is Kevlar, imported from Earth (which would be cheaper, in terms of mass, to import from Earth than conventional steel).
The basic ingredients for lunarcrete would be the same as those for Terrestrial concrete: aggregate, water, and cement. In the case of lunarcrete, the aggregate would be lunar regolith. The cement would be manufactured by beneficiating lunar rock that had a high calcium content. Water would either be supplied from off the moon, or by combining oxygen with hydrogen produced from lunar soil.
Source: Wikipedia
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