Kinetics of Magnesium Removal from Garnierite by Carbothermal Reduction in Vacuum

The removal of magnesium from garnierite in Yuanjiang area of Yunnan was performed by carbothermal reduction in vacuum. The effects of reduction temperature and reduction time on the removal rate of magnesium were investigated. The kinetics of the removal of magnesium by carbothermal reduction in vacuum was studied. The thermodynamic calculation results show that it is feasible to remove magnesium from garnierite by carbothermal reduction in vacuum. The experimental results show that the removal rate of magnesium in garnierite can reach 93.23% under the conditions of 1823K for 120min. The reduction process conforms to the chemical reaction kinetics model, which indicated that the reduction process is controlled by chemical reaction and whose expression is 1-(1-α)1/3=(-22850.1/T+2.6296) t, the apparent activation energy (Ea) and the pre-exponential factor (A) are 189.97 kJ/mol and 13.87 s-1, respectively. The results of XRD and SEM analysis show that the condensate obtained by carbothermal reduction in vacuum of the garnierite is magnesium, which is mainly obtained by the reduction reaction between magnesium silicate produced by the decomposition of serpentine in minerals and coal. At the same time, it is proved that it is feasible to directly extract magnesium metal from the garnierite.