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Written by Tom Vulcan  |

May 11, 2010

Magnesium: Behind The Bright Shining Light

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In our latest installment of our Minor Metals series, we look at magnesium, a metal with huge reserves—and maybe even bigger potential in the energy industry.

Just as bismuth is the "Bis" in Pepto-Bismol, magnesium hydroxide is the "magnesia" in milk of magnesia. (Of course, anything further away from milk in taste or looks would be quite difficult to find!)

Apart from acting as a great antacid, laxative and relaxant for those tired muscles, magnesium is vital to our lives. According to the U.S. National Institutes of Health—Office of Dietary Supplements, "magnesium is the fourth most abundant mineral in the body and is essential to good health." Indeed, the various compounds of magnesium are produced by the hundreds of thousands of tonnes, and consumed by the millions. It's even crucial for nonhuman health: In 2008, the USGS reported that some 31 percent of the caustic-calcined magnesia consumed in the U.S. was used in animal feed and fertilizers.

But as vital as magnesium compounds may be, magnesium metal, although produced and consumed in far smaller quantities, is also extremely important.

Whence The Magnesium?

Unlike for many of the strategic/minor metals, reserves of magnesium are pretty much limitless. Why? Because it's so easy to get at: Not only can the metal be extracted from various mined minerals such as carnellite, brucite, dolomite, magnesite and olivine, it can also be extracted from seawater and natural lake brines. Case in point: US Magnesium LLC, the lone company in the U.S. currently producing primary magnesium metal, recovers it from the brines of Utah's Great Salt Lake at its plant in Rowley, Utah.

In addition, there is significant production of secondary magnesium through scrap recycling. The USGS estimated that, in the U.S. last year, this amounted to some 22,000 tonnes (accounting, perhaps, for some 40-50 percent of total supply in the country). The U.S., in particular, is a hub of magnesium recycling; Advanced Magnesium Alloys Corporation (AMACOR), based in Anderson, Ind., is the largest magnesium recycling facility in the world.

Magnesium is produced using two major different methods: either by thermal reduction (using any one of six different processes) or electrolytically (using any one of eight different processes). The former method is most usually used to extract the metal from its ores, while the latter method, in addition to being used with ore feedstock (particularly carnellite and magnesite), is also used to extract the metal from seawater and brines. (Thus, US Magnesium uses an electrolytic process.)

Thermal processes tend to be more cost-efficient than electrolytic methods. In fact, the low-cost Pidgeon process—developed in Canada in the ‘20s—is the most commonly used production method in China, now by far the world's largest producer of magnesium compounds as well as magnesium metal.

China wasn't always the world's biggest producer. Back in 1995, according to USGS figures, the U.S. accounted for nearly 36 percent of global primary production, amounting to 142,000 tonnes of magnesium metal. China's production, at some 93,600 tonnes, totaled only some 27 percent.

Times have changed, however: In 2009, similar figures from the USGS estimated Chinese production at 470,000 tonnes, or 82 percent of global production. And while figures for U.S. magnesium metal production (now from US Magnesium alone) were "withheld to avoid disclosing proprietary data," suffice to say that the company's Rowley plant produces some 52,000 tonnes per annum, or only around 9 percent of total actual global production.

In fact, over the past 15 years or so, a number of producing countries have fallen by the wayside. According to the USGS, Canada, France and Norway no longer produce primary magnesium. And a significant newcomer is Israel (together with Russia each now contributing a little over 5 percent of global production), which only started producing the metal in any quantities in 1998.

Source: USGS