Sustainable manufacturing process applied to produce magnesium oxide from sea water

Abstract

Magnesium oxide is one of the most important materials that used to produce a basic refractory material which is applied for liningsteel and iron furnaces as well as cement furnaces. In this research, magnesium oxide was produced from sea water that content effective percentage of magnesium hydroxide instead of magnesium carbonate rock. The process has been done by adding additive materials which include high alumina, iron oxide, sodium phosphate and sodium silicate to reduce the sintering temperature to 1400 °C instead of 1750 °C. Moreover, kiln furnace was used instead of rotary furnace to do the sintering process. The results show that there is a possibility to produce magnesium oxide with purity of 56%. It is stable at temperature less than 1600 °C and resists the humidity and water. The process of producing magnesium oxide could be considered as a sustainable manufacturing process due to the applied lower sintering temperature which leads to reduce cost, energy and pollution.