Making Magnesium Metal 

Mix the MgCl2 and KCl togther in a ball mill. Add a small amount of silica sand to it as well. Melt down. Continue heating to bright red heat in a steel can. Next use a graphite rod as the anode. 7 to 15A is about right for a soup can container. The magnesium will sink to the bottom of the can. The high temperature also prevents formation of an alloy of k and mg.❤

Not a super long time ago, I found out that there are rocks in my area that are extremely magnesium rich, which I hope to eventually separate from the rocks and convert into custom castable alloys.

I think one of the problems is, once the molten metal falls, it's then falling on the anode and thus is in an oxidizing environment. Maybe put an insulator, like a silicate dish, on the bottom of the graphite crucible to collect the liquid metal?

Hi Scrap Science, Nice video and encouraging results. Magnesium dust or sponge can be quite reactive with air or water. Dust can be pyrophoric and may lead to a FAE while opening the drum. Jus like Al, with water, Mg reacts and it can be accelerated by warm water (sometimes due to self warming). Mg + H2O --> H2(g) + MgO(s) MgO + H2O --> Mg(OH)2(s) Some water gels of Al (and probably Mg too) can be actuated by primers and H2O2 mixes are devastating. Magnesium rods are used to reach very high temperature underwater because it reacts with water to produce MgO that burns hot and bright underwater generating H2 gas arround. When trowing the molten metal and MgCl2 onto rusted iron...it may decompose a bit the Mg metal due to "magneto-thermic" reaction, Mg is very close to aluminium and it is thus reducing metal but more reactive than Al. 3Mg + Fe2O3 --> 3MgO + 2Fe Reagards, PHZ (PHILOU Zrealone from the Science Madness forum)

Great idea. Happy that you managed to pull it off

always a good day when scrap science uploads !!

@6:15 perhaps you could use a small fine-meshed steel sieve for the electrode put deeply inside the molten salts (and saving it from oxygen and CO2 and CO, that may have reduced the yield ?). Could you coalesce the metal chunks under a borax layer ?

Nice work! Really enjoying your metals series. Some are tougher than others, glad you were successful!

That is so funny. I literally use the exact same tea spoons for my molten salt/metal experiments. I love it

you will wake up tomorrow

Well done !

I enjoyed your videos. It is also good to post a video on the production method of ammonium persulfate

I have a crazy idea I'd like to try: I think it should be possible to dissolve MgCl2 in acetone or ethanol (less so than in water but still) and you should be able to extract the Mg from there by electrolysis. For a reason I am unable to explain for having forgotten it, the electrolysis doesn't work in water but could work in these other solvents. It is hugely recommended against because the electrolysis will also produce tons of weird organic compounds and everything might catch on fire. But it should be a pretty fun experiment.

8A on such a small wire is probably close if not more than the limiting current, which would also explain that your metal is reactive .... if you namely go beyond limiting current for your magnesium reaction you will get potassium deposition or alloy deposition Also, I think it wont work to do molten magnesium in your cruicible and the cruicible being the anode .... as the magnesium would drop down and then reaoxidize on the anode For that the crucible should be the cathode and another graphite piece(/rod) as the anode

That you got anything at all is impressive. Can you imagine being in the time of Davy, and relying on nothing but an old battery that's been used for lectures and experiments for years?

There was an wet labor elektrolysis with an double salt of ammoniummagnesiumsulfate.No exact descriptions. But writen in an Chemistry book from 1920

Should have blendered the oxides and such after removing from salts, the heated to 7-800c with a bunch of glass or boric acid etc for flux, and metal should reform?

great video

I was waiting for this! Great video! P.s. Could you please make a video about the production of persulfates?

You could melt the sponge stuff in a non-reactive atmosphere. Of course the usual option is argon but it would be interesting to see a fuel like hydrogen to be used since it doesn’t oxidize.

Super! Thank you very much!

Small prills are super easy to filter out with using a fine screen.

I'm pretty sure one of the experiments in my 80's chemistry set proved that Magnesium in ribbon form does react with water. Think it had to be hot water. This is from memory, I'm trying to hunt out the manual in my terribly organised bookshelf.

I never seen that anywhere. I think magnesium is a very cool metal.

I think you have made magnesium anhydride, which releases hydrogen when exposed to water. If it’s hydrogen the bubbles should ignite when exposed to a flame.

I bought a magnesium fire starter. I played with the metal, filed it, played with powdered and flaked (burned and such). The main block ended up in a cup of water, can't remember what I was doing, but anyhoo, it became covered in this white stuff, looking like an oxide layer on steroids, but the black and whiteness of it let's me know that spongy stuff is all magnesium. It is very reactive, basically with more surface area its almost like activated aluminum (like mercury treated). A simple fire test proves this, as you see with the beads. You have far more magnesium than those little beads. That Slag is pretty pure magnesium.

Could it be that what you see reacting with water is in fact a tiny percentage of metallic Potassium that you managed to reduce in the same electrolysis bath?

If the metal sinks off the cathode as it forms, it will sink onto the anode where it will inhibit the oxidation of chloride by oxidising itself away. Assuming you don’t put some sort of insulating vessel inside the molten salt, or maybe some sort of much denser chloride salt that the magnesium metal will float atop. Best off performing the electrolysis at a lower temperature and attempting to remelt it separately. Didn’t think about using the graphite as the cathode, that’s sensible. Bet that dendritic sponge burns well though. Maybe you could dissolve the salts off in particularly high pH water?

The comments are getting weird . We now have Schrodinger's chemist .

Thanks for this video very well presented. I would have tried melting all the black stuff under argon or nirogen gas to melt the magnesium, that would have incresed your yield of Mg metal.

Is it possible to extract the lanthanide metals like lanthanum and neodymium from their compounds using electrolysis?

The reversible double carbon reduction reaction against magnesium oxide would be a better way to do this. That or the one way reaction with aluminum. Both require a lot of heat energy, but both are very precise and precisely controllable.

Another method is Silicon to purify Calcium and Magnesium metal. It could work since it binds to iron, etc if needed. But I assume it is quite pure Magnesium. Yes, Oils are too low for the project Cool video. Patent info on it said Silicon may work. However high temperatures are required. Also works for Magnesium.

HEY ive been looking for a diy thing for magnesium. I was considering it for a looping oxidation furnace. I eventually decided id rather use lime since calcium cyanamide is a byproduct, aka easy nitrogen fixation.

I wonder if some potassium fluoride would help the oxychloride mixture dissolve/electrolyze? Also be interesting to use a graphite rod anode in the middle, letting metal form on and sink to the bottom of the crucible. I wonder if carbide formation is relevant here? Mg2C I think isn't very common, or stable, but with direct elemental synthesis, who knows. A welded steel crucible cathode might be mitigation for this (Fe and Mg are pretty much insoluble/immiscible).

Thats really cool shit, never seen that anywhre

I wonder if the spongy high surface stuff would be good to make Grignard reagents?

Maybe just try to collect more of that spongy stuff and melt it in solid blob?

Couldn't you put the powder un a centrifuge?

Cool!

Nice video. First time to see a magnesium extraction. Have you managed to clean your crucible?

You should do this is magnesium sulphate it's very cheap and common from Epson salt

Could you do a video on potassium persulfate

Have you thought of Purifiying it with Mineral Oil sort of what you would do with Sodium? Or is that a totally different method? Cool video indeed.

7:10 could you maybe have a bit of potassium contaminating your magnesium that would explain the tame but existing reaction of your product with water?

I dunno that fine grain magnesium might make for an interesting thermite reaction. Just saying

Are there any research papers out there for extracting magnesium from magnesium chloride? I know there has been some work on this.

Not surprising considering that little bead was around 10mg you are looking at about 250J pf which at sumch small piece and considering the process is adiabatic around 22%-25% of the energy is the form of visible light which means around 60J in light for about four seconds that means about 15W of light on average that is hell bright of light hou know

Hi, just wondering is there ever going to be the synthesis of perchlorates proposed by you in the video about sodium chlorate?

Nice spot to film the intro. Do you mind sharing where that is?

Is that furnace 10A or 15A? :O I have a few too many failed plaster of paris furnaces... ; _ ;

could you have baked the Magnesium chloride at 400 for a few hours to drive water off?

What about epson salt?, ir si cheaper, can i extract nagnessium from there ando sepárate ir from the sulphurim that😀 can be useful as well?

Can l make mg with Mgso4

In my opinion all you needed to do is shield it from oxygen. A flow of argon through a cover to flush out the air would have done it. You got magnesium oxide with tiny flecks of magnesium that got lucky enough to escape the air when it was very hot . I expect you know this by now anyway.... I think you would have had a good yeild if you did that. The potassium chloride addition was a bad idea too.

*You find the most awkward way to do the simplest jobs. The Graphite Crucible should have been your negative and the Carbon rod be the positive. Minimum temp 1400F. at 3.3 volts and 20 amps. Result: 24 grams MG metal in bottom of Crucible in about 10 minutes. Use Magnesium Oxide and Sodium Fluoride and just keep adding more MgOx as needed. Very similar to Aluminum making process.*

Bravo.......screw magnesium.......it makes hydrogen .......when u put in water........measurements how much yield......also reactor with gas shield.....cheers

Try dissolving MgCl2 and KCl in water and boil the solution down to crystallize carnallite (KMgCl3·6H2O). It should dehydrate easier than the MgCl2 and give better yields. Also the magnesium sponge can potentially be a good source of highly reactive magnesium (for alcohol catalyzed sodium synthesis or similar experiments).

This metallic spongey stuff could be used to make a hydrogen fuel cell, for some tool or other idea that requires it

Of course it’s reacting with water you put potassium in it. I’m no chemist but it seems obvious to me

i know you can't make clickbaits nor would but small yields decreases viewers

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make oxigenated wather

you will not wake up tomorrow

Hi, I've been interested in chlorate production for quite a while now. Finally I found mmo anodes at a reasonable price in the EU. But I have a question and I think you are the person who might know the answer. Question is: what's better? Plate or mesh? Both anodes are in same price. From NurdRange's vid I know that KClO3 crystals can grow in the holes of the mesh blocking electron flow, and that's what I'm afraid of. I guess mesh has a larger surface area so I don't know which one to pick. Hope you know the answer

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FFC_Cambridge_process Reducing metal oxides to metal in molten CaCl2 or it's eutectics (NaCl/KCl/CaCl2)

Hi!