6. Magnesia metallurgy
The starting material for magnesia (MgO) is natural magnesium carbonate, i.e. magnesite (natural route), magnesium chloride (synthetic route) or dolomite.
6.1 Production of magnesia from magnesite
Magnesia is produced from magnesite by calcination. Magnesium oxide activity depends on the formation of small MgO crystals 50 to 1,000 Å in length. The size of the smallest MgO crystals is therefore of the same order of magnitude as that of the periclase unit cell.
The qualities of MgO depend on the calcination conditions:
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at a temperature of 700 to 1,000°C, calcination produces caustic magnesia (CCM: Caustic Calcined Magnesia) according to the decomposition reaction:
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Magnesia metallurgy
Production of magnesium salts
Bibliography
Reviews
Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy
Chemical Engineering
Electro Chemical Society
Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology, Kirk-Othmer
Engineering and Mining Journal...
Events
Annual conferencesInternational Magnesium Association (IMA) (founded 1943). [email protected] .
Economic data
1. World magnesite production
In 2007, world mine production of magnesite totaled over 4.5 Mt (excluding the United States). It came mainly from China (1.87 Mt), Turkey (0.93 Mt), North Korea (1.85 Mt), Russia (0.35 Mt), Spain (0.15 Mt) and Greece (0.15 Mt). In addition to this production, some 10.1 Mt of magnesite were extracted from seawater and salt lakes; for Japan and the USA, production from seawater was 5...
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