Carbothermal Production of Magnesium: CSIRO's MagSonic square Process

Process Science and Engineering; 2CSIRO Mathematics Informatics and Statistics Carbothermal production has been recognized as the simplest and cleanest route to magnesium metal, but has suffered from technical challenges of development and scale-up. Work by CSIRO has now successfully demonstrated the technology using supersonic quenching (the MagSonic Process). Key barriers to process development have been overcome: the experimental program has achieved sustained operation, no nozzle blockage, minimal reversion, and safe handling of pyrophoric powders. The laboratory equipment has been operated at industriallyrelevant magnesium vapor concentrations (>25% Mg) for multiple runs with no blockage. Novel computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling of the shock quenching and metal vapor condensation has informed nozzle design and is supported by experimental data. Reversion below 10% has been demonstrated, and magnesium successfully purified (>99.9%) from the collected powder. Safe operating procedures have been developed and demonstrated, minimizing the risk of powder explosion. The MagSonic? Process is now progressing to significantly larger scale and continuous operation.