Hydrothermal vents, which are highly plausible habitable environments for life and of interest for some origin-of-life scenarios, may exist on icy moons such as Europa or Enceladus in addition to Earth. Some hydrothermal vent chimney structures are extremely porous and friable, making their reconstruction in the lab challenging (e.g., brucite or saponite in alkaline hydrothermal settings). Here, we present the results from our efforts to reconstruct a simplified chimney structure directly out of mineral powder using binder jet additive manufacturing. Olivine sand was chosen for this initial method development effort since it represents a naturally occurring seafloor material and is inexpensively available in large quantities in powder form. The crystal structure of olivine used for the print was not modified during the process, as confirmed by powder X-ray diffraction (XRD). To characterize the microstructure of our 3D printed precipitates, we used computed tomography (CT) X-ray scan techniques. We also evaluated a chimney precipitate from a sample collected from the Prony Hydrothermal Field (PHF), southern New Caledonia, an alkaline system driven by serpentinization with mineralogy composed of brucite and carbonates. While not directly comparable from a mineralogical point of view, the microstructure and porosity of both precipitates was similar, suggesting that our 3D printing technique may be a valuable tool for future astrobiology research on hydrothermal vent precipitates.

中文翻译：

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3D 打印矿物作为热液通风烟囱的天体生物学类似物。

热液喷口是非常可能的生命宜居环境，并且对某些生命起源场景感兴趣，除了地球外，还可能存在于冰冷的卫星上，例如木卫二或土卫二。一些热液喷口烟囱结构非常多孔且易碎，这使得在实验室中重建它们具有挑战性（例如，碱性热液环境中的水镁石或皂石）。在这里，我们展示了我们使用粘合剂喷射增材制造直接从矿物粉末重建简化烟囱结构的努力的结果。橄榄石砂被选择用于这一最初的方法开发工作，因为它代表了一种天然存在的海底材料，并且可以廉价地以粉末形式大量购买。粉末 X 射线衍射 (XRD) 证实，用于打印的橄榄石的晶体结构在此过程中未发生改变。为了表征我们的 3D 打印沉淀物的微观结构，我们使用了计算机断层扫描 (CT) X 射线扫描技术。我们还评估了从新喀里多尼亚南部 Prony 热液场 (PHF) 收集的样品中的烟囱沉淀物，由蛇纹石化驱动的碱性系统，矿物学由水镁石和碳酸盐组成。虽然从矿物学的角度不能直接比较，但两种沉淀物的微观结构和孔隙率相似，这表明我们的 3D 打印技术可能是未来对热液喷口沉淀物进行天体生物学研究的宝贵工具。