Overview
- This week Interlune reported that its Cold Capture cryogenic‑distillation system produced helium‑3 at 99% purity in its Seattle lab, a lab demonstration the company says validates the separation method.
- The company holds an AFWERX Direct‑to‑Phase II SBIR award to scale Cold Capture toward industrial quantities of helium for commercial and research use.
- Interlune estimates that installing Cold Capture across U.S. helium liquefaction plants could yield about 2.5 kilograms of helium‑3 per year, roughly three times current domestic output.
- The firm has secured nearly $500 million in binding purchase agreements with buyers such as Maybell Quantum and Bluefors and has raised venture and non‑dilutive funding to move toward commercial deliveries.
- Cold Capture separates helium‑3 from far more common helium‑4 by using cryogenic distillation near absolute zero to exploit small physical differences between the isotopes, and the company plans to first validate the process on Earth before adapting it for future lunar regolith harvesting.