Decarbonized Production of Magnesium Metal from Sustainable Feedstocks in the U.S.A.

Magnesium metal is the lightest structural metal commonly used for lightweighting of automotive and aerospace components, currently in short supply in the United States and has been listed as a critical metal by the Department of Energy. More than 90% of magnesium is produced in China and Russia today. A novel technology package has been developed for the manufacture of electrolytic magnesium metal to address the current, and growing supply shortage. The technology will make use of domestic magnesium chloride brines to produce magnesium metal and is completely independent of the need for open pit mining. The technology package is designed to integrate with renewable energy sources, does not pollute, is carbon neutral, and integrates with the circular economy by making use of waste products as raw material feed. Technology commercialization is in process with a pilot project currently under construction. Phase I of the SBIR Project will evaluate the corrosion resistance of modern and low cost materials of construction and specialist coatings, thus optimizing the overall CAPEX and OPEX of a magnesium chloride electrolysis cell.Phase I of the Project involves procuring a range of specialized materials and coated materials for evaluation as electrodes and structural materials of constructions. These materials will be exposed to the corrosive environments of a magnesium electrochemical cell (molten chloride salts, temperatures exceeding 650°C and chlorine gas) and evaluated for corrosion resistance as well as other physicochemical transformations (conductivity, crystal structure, interface changes, mass and dimensional changes). The material performance will be combined with economic considerations to determine the optimal electrode and structural material to maximize the success of this electrochemical technology for commercial magnesium metal production.Magnesium metal is critical to lightweighting of automotive and aerospace vehicles. By determining the optimal materials of construction of electrodes and structural components in Phase I, pilot and demonstration-scale molten salt electrolysis reactors for the manufacture of magnesium metal can be constructed in Phase II and Phase III respectively.