Magnesium is abundant and important for human health and industrial applications. It can be extracted from seawater or brine wells. Seawater requires treating a large volume for the same amount of magnesium. The process involves mixing seawater with suspended salts, settling, filtering, washing, and calcining. Other ingredients can be added for different compounds. Large processing plants are needed for seawater extraction.
Magnesium is an abundant and vitally useful element that has numerous industrial applications as well as being important to human health. It is the third most common dissolved mineral in seawater, and many sources of magnesium are actually mineral deposits left over from the oceans. Magnesium is also extracted from high concentration brine wells and, yes, it is also possible to extract magnesium from seawater. Brine wells are found in numerous places around the world and have historically been used as a source of salt and magnesium.
Many manufacturers prefer to process the brine to extract the magnesium, as the brine has a high concentration of dissolved minerals, including magnesium. The requirement to extract magnesium from seawater is actually identical, although it requires treating a large volume of seawater for the same final amount of magnesium. Since magnesium is extremely useful, the process is worth the cost for some companies. Especially during World War II, when magnesium was highly sought after, several companies set up facilities to extract magnesium from seawater.
To start the mining process, a company mixes seawater with its suspended salts, including magnesium hydroxide, with calcium oxide, also called lime, to make a slurry. The slurry is allowed to settle so that the solids settle to the bottom and the water rises to the top, then the solids are removed, filtered and washed to remove residual chlorides. The end result is a loosely packed “cake” of material that is calcined in a kiln to leave the magnesium behind.
Depending on the precise compound desired, other ingredients such as sulfuric acid can be mixed with the slurry to generate a different end product. Because a variety of magnesium compounds are used in industrial processes, these unique treatments can create a range of targeted products. The substance can also be converted back into magnesium hydroxide in the case of milk of magnesia, a solution of magnesium in water that is used to treat a variety of intestinal ailments.
Companies that extract magnesium from seawater rely on very large processing plants that can handle large volumes of seawater. Since dissolved salts in seawater only make up about 3.5% of the total volume, unlike brine, which has dissolved salts in concentrations greater than 50%, a very large amount of seawater needs to be treated to make the production of seawater comparable to brine wells.
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