This startup wants to make more climate-friendly metal in the US

The Magrathea operation star is an electrical device, a device that uses electricity to divide a material into its components. The use of the electromizer in magnesium production is not new, but the Magrathea approach is an update. “We really updated it and brought it to the twenty -first century,” says Alex Grant, founder and CEO of Magrathea.

The whole process begins with salt water. There are small amounts of magnesium in sea water, as well as in salt lakes and groundwater. (In sea water, the concentration is about 1300 parts per million, so magnesium constitutes about 0.1 % of the sea water.

Magrathea takes this salt (currently buying from Cargill) and puts it in the electricity. The device reaches temperatures of about 700 ° C (approximately 1300 ° F) and manages electricity through molten salt to divide magnesium from chlorine, which forms the mineral magnesium.

Electristar is usually required in this process a constant source of electricity. The temperature is generally maintained enough to keep salt in a molten state. Allowing him to calm a lot of it would allow him to unify the process and cause damage to the destruction of the equipment. Heating it too much that only gets the energy.

Magrathea approach builds in flexibility. Basically, the company runs the electrode about 100 ° C, which is necessary to maintain liquid molten salt. Then he uses the additional heat in innovative ways, including drying magnesium salt, which eventually goes to the reactor. This setting can be made intermittently, so that the company can take electricity when it is cheaper or when more renewable energy sources are available, and reduce costs and emissions. In addition, the process will make a common product, called magnesium oxide, which can be used for the carbon dioxide team from the atmosphere, which helps to cancel the remaining carbon pollution.

The result can be a production process with net zero emissions, according to the evaluation of an independent life cycle that was completed in January. Although it is likely that it does not reach this tape at the beginning, the capabilities are much more than a climate process than what is used in the industry today, says Grant.

Simon Joyt, director of the mines in Nevada and the Research Center in Economic Geology at Nevada University, Renault, says that storming magnesium production will not be simple.