Mars’ atmosphere is 95% carbon dioxide with most of the remainder being inert gases [1]. That not only means this reaction yields a meaningful amount of oxygen per operating cycle [2], it also means you aren’t superheating corrosive gases. This is technology that has no use on Earth. It’s tremendously useful on Mars.
> anything we do to make mars habitable can make earth habitable
This is fundamentally false for the device this article highlights. Different chemistries.
> you’re telling me that a corrosive byproduct cannot be captured or reused: then that is likely also true of mars
It’s not. There isn’t oxygen. Superheating 95% CO2 with inert gases and running it over a catalyst in a device that can do about sixty operating cycles makes sense. Superheating a 20% oxygen gas mix [1] is immediately problematic for most metals; doing it to convert the 0.04% CO2 to oxygen makes no sense. (While pumping a bunch of CO into the atmosphere [2].)
Mars’ atmosphere is 95% carbon dioxide with most of the remainder being inert gases [1]. That not only means this reaction yields a meaningful amount of oxygen per operating cycle [2], it also means you aren’t superheating corrosive gases. This is technology that has no use on Earth. It’s tremendously useful on Mars.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Mars
[2] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abp8636