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Preparation of Magnesium Chloride from Sea Water Bitterns using Techniques of Spray and Thermal Drying

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Abstract

Magnesium metal is used in automobile, sports and aircraft industries. It is also used in aluminum alloys and titanium production. The main raw material for magnesium production is anhydrous magnesium chloride which can be produced from sea water bitterns, magnesite and dolomite. Sea water bitterns from Bhavanagar, Gujarat, India has been used to produce magnesium chloride in the present study using low temperature spray drying. As bitterns solution contains lot of sodium and sulfate, efforts have been made to remove both these elements before spray drying. The purified solution is subjected for spray drying and the variables covered during spray drying are feed flow rate, inlet temperature and atomization pressure. With increase in flow rate from 2 to 5 mL/min, % of magnesium chloride content in the product is reduced from 57.58 to 52.73 %. Temperature and atomization pressure are not having significant effect on percentage of magnesium chloride in the product. The spray dried powder contains moisture content which is removed by thermal decomposition. Thermal drying studies such as temperature, duration of thermal drying have been carried out. The final product of MgCl21.31H2O is suitable for magnesium metal production using fused salt electrolysis.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are thankful to DRDO, Ministry of Defense, New Delhi for financial support of the project and the management of VFSTR, Vadlamudi for encouraging and supporting the activities of the project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, Vignan’s Foundation for Science, Technology and Research, Vadlamudi, Guntur, 522 213, India

    Venkata Swamy Nalajala, Naga Jyothi Kothamasu, Ramesh Naidu Mandapati & Tondepu Subbaiah

  2. Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory, Hyderabad, 500058, India

    R. V. S. Nagesh Chaganti

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  1. Venkata Swamy Nalajala
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  2. Naga Jyothi Kothamasu
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  3. Ramesh Naidu Mandapati
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  4. R. V. S. Nagesh Chaganti
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  5. Tondepu Subbaiah
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Correspondence to Tondepu Subbaiah.

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This invited article is part of a special topical focus in the Journal of Materials Engineering and Performance on Magnesium. The issue was organized by Prof. C. (Ravi) Ravindran, Dr. Raja Roy, Mr. Payam Emadi, and Mr. Bernoulli Andilab, Ryerson University.

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Nalajala, V.S., Kothamasu, N.J., Mandapati, R.N. et al. Preparation of Magnesium Chloride from Sea Water Bitterns using Techniques of Spray and Thermal Drying. J. of Materi Eng and Perform 32, 2537–2542 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11665-022-06841-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11665-022-06841-1

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