Turn that moon dust into oxygen and win

Moon dust engineers are in high demand these days. NASA has a quarter of a million dollar prize up for grabs for the first team to make oxygen from moon dust. The machine must meet NASA's weight and power limits, and must be able to extract at least five kilograms of oxygen from a sample of volcanic ash in eight hours. Volcanic ash is very similar to moon dust, and obviously a lot easier to get one's hands on. For the machine to work, it will need to release oxygen atoms from the silica and other minerals that form the majority of volcanic and lunar rock. One way to separate oxygen from the rock is to use an electric current to separate negatively charged oxygen from the positive ions to which it is bound. Link.