5. Magnesium metal extraction
There are two main ways of producing magnesium metal:
the electrolytic route, from MgCl 2 ;
the metallo-thermal route, from MgO, by reduction with Si or Al.
5.1 Electrolytic route
To perform molten salt electrolysis, it is necessary to operate with anhydrous or partially anhydrous MgCl 2 . However, in addition to eliminating impurities in solution, a major difficulty lies in dehydrating magnesium chloride. In fact, 6 molecules of water are bound to the chloride; of these 6 molecules, 4.5 can be removed by heating, but the remaining 1.5 molecules is bound water, which is difficult to extract...
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Magnesium metal extraction
Magnesia metallurgy
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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