Magnesium metal extraction
Magnesium metallurgy

To perform molten salt electrolysis, it is necessary to operate with anhydrous or partially anhydrous MgCl₂. 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 and forms undesirable products when heated further.