Recycling of magnesium chips

Magnesium chips were processed by means of re-melting. An important requirement of re-melting the chips is the removal of oil and moisture. The results show that using acetone in a soxhlet as an organic solvent is a more efficient method to obtain good results compared to vacuum distillation with a rotational evaporator. The subsequent re-melting has been successfully performed without the addition of flux between temperatures of 580 °C and 600°C. At this temperature range, the exothermic reaction of magnesium with the oxygen present in the surrounding atmosphere was avoided. Results show that more than 95 % of the magnesium chips were able to be recovered as metal. Experiments were performed at different scales to obtain production parameters for the recycling process. Larger particle size of magnesium chips were able to be faster remelted than the smaller ones. In the case of added lime for oil removal, the yield of recovered magnesium was lower due to the reaction towards magnesium foam. The ability of re-melting at low temperatures without the need for flux demonstrates the possibility of recovering virtually all of the metal from the chips.