Welcome to the AGE of MAGNESIUM 

Everyone deserves someone who cares as much about them as this guy cares about magnesium.

We Americans want lawns on the Moon!

About 20 years ago , Dr. Gorny developed a magnesium alloy that was stronger than 6061 aluminum and got it to not catch fire.

"I am here to inform you about something" "What is it?" "The magnesium revolution has started" "0mg"

Ah Magnesium the metal that burns so hot Lithium looks like a birthday candle.

In the 1970's I mowed lawns with a Lawn Boy that had a mower deck made of magnesium. They were ***much*** lighter than steel deck push mowers and lasted a really long time. When we replaced our venerable old soldier I took it apart and cut some chunks of the mower deck off and *by hand* ground up large mounds of magnesium. That fueled my "energetics" experiments for years with my own raw materials and boy HOWDY that sho'nuff do burn GOOOOD... We used to do that sort of stuff as kids. Now they would call you the "T" word and law enforcement would be involved and you would never have a sense of discovery.

Imagine a world without zinc

Been making aircraft parts out of magnesium alloy for decades. The problem with magnesium is it loves to corrode. That of course isn’t an issue for a car manufacturer who would love you to need to buy a new one every 10 years.

About 15 years ago, I read a report on vehicle light weighting by Lotus. They said that the economic value of removing 1lb from a car was about $3. At the time, removing 1lb from a commercial aircraft was $1,000 and removing 1lb from a satellite was $10,000. So there is not a huge economic driver for the automakers to use light weight design. Some of them realized that light weight is key to vehicle performance though, and that made light weight design more valuable. The Mazda RX-7 (FD) had all aluminum bodywork. Some Miatas and WRXs have aluminum hoods to help move the center of gravity rearward. An important design concept that I think is too often ignored is that low density materials can often result in lighter, yet stiffer structures. Stiffness of a section of material is a function of its thickness raised to the third power. So for a given mass of structural material, the lower density one can be thicker and will make the stiffest structure-- assuming you can actually fabricate the material into that structure. Magnesium rivals carbon fiber in density, so I see some applications where a low density metallic construction may be an advantage over the composite construction. One nice example of this is XTR mountain bike brake calipers. A cast magnesium caliper must be far easier to produce than a composite one would be.

Imagine you get into a fiery accident and your entire car starts to glow like the sun.

I'm a simple man. I see a video with 13:37 and I click on it. Very informative.

As soon as battery capacity’s quadruple manufacturers will stop caring about vehicle weight again

Lawn Boy was making mowers with Magnesium decks in the 1960s. I also remember my brother’s Chevelle SS having Magnesium wheels in the 1970s.

I would've loved to see an infographic of the strength to weight ratio for the new magnesium alloy compared to steel and aluminum, but generally this was peak RU-vid 👌🏻 thanks

Very glad the algorithm sent me here.

I am doing my masters in environmental engineering and researching magnesium based materials for decontaminating soils and water. it is showing amazing qualities that i would not have expected at all better than even conventional materials

I work in the archery industry, there's a bow company (Xpedition) that is using a magnesium-aluminum alloy to make compound bow risers that are about as light as carbon fiber ones.

Don't intend to watch the video, just clicked to say that the thumbnail rocks.

It turns out that stamped aluminum car bodies do exist, they just never caught on at a large scale. The reason for this might be that, despite improving fuel efficiency, they also increase cost, and for gas cars, nobody cares about fuel efficiency. The high pressure die castings should have broader appeal, as they decrease the cost of the vehicle, in spite of using a more expensive material, thanks to large reductions in fixed costs

The gigacasting is just a coincidence with Tesla using the giga prefix, Idra made the giga press and at the time it was the only manufacturer that could do the size they needed, Elon has even said on stream that it's just a coincidence.

Magnesium in automotive isn't new, infact it's quite old. Even old alloys were implemented as engine blocks. Now saying corrosion is "solved" is a misnomer. In comparison to aluminum, the best alloy of magnesium is still quite reactive. The challenge is more on the design side. Metallurgy can still be improved, but the impact is where and how you use each metal in a vehicle. That's not to say the increasing demand for lightweithting isn't a new shift in industry. Indeed, new developments in casting techniques and Metallurgy will allow the implementation in good designs. I can easilly agree with your assessment of production. However, I think alot of people forget the importance of market circularity in emerging demand. Good design and Metallurgy should consider the requirements of recycling for recovering already extracted materials.

I'm embarrassed that I never heard of building stuff out of magnesium before. Fantastic video.

Oh yeah, let me get a e-car crash where a lithium battery goes up in flames then ignites the magnesium, gonna be lit.

Really a treat to come across an informative video that’s eloquent, logical, concise, well structured, thoughtful and well researched while still being laid back enough to be pleasant to watch.

My academic advisor in university is actually the person who developed the YSZ process mentioned at 7:38 lol

That new nasa alloy is very interesting

I've had old vw beetle engines with magnesium cases, and I still have a 1977 Bultaco motorcycle with magnesium engine case. no real point to my comment just feeding the machine for your excellent video!

People have long had the idea to make cars entirely from magnesium, but there is some reason, technical or financial, that has held the idea back. In the 1930's Dow made prototypes that they marketed of a car made from "Dow metal," which was magnesium, including the frame, body, engine block, etc. They derived the magesium from underground water. Apparently the amounts of magnesium in seawater are enormous. So you don't need to mine it, but obviously theres a cost of extraction. The original VW beetle type 1 engines had magnesium cases. When i was a kid any aftermarket wheels were called "mags," because sometimes they were magnesium. Bits and bobs of racing vehicles would be made of magnesium. There were bicycle frames in the 80's of cast magnesium (not very successful), and now there is a small number of bike frames made of aluminum - magnesium alloy.

Magnesium car with Lithium batteries in a indestructable cyber truck that electrically opens the car doors…. That’s a death trap 😂

Electric vehicles with Magnesium component already exists. Best real life example to me is the EUC Veteran Lynx, it's hands down the best all around due to it's lightweight body when compare to power delivery and size. And the magnesium shell design is the key to that. Thx for your time and dedication you put in your videos, always top content IMO.

I worked in magnesium diecasting years back now. Yes, you can get magnesium less flammable, less being the key word. There are a lot of problems with doing that through. Mostly, the more aluminum you add the harder it gets to work with the alloy in a manufacturing sense. The alloys tend to be thicker and sticky which clogs the pumps needed in the diecast process. There is also the problem of the metals properties in general. It is stronger then aluminum but more brittle. That is how we ended up with some newer alloy as the part we were making couldn't survive crash tests without shattering, (no, i am not going to get sued for telling you any information on the actual part and really you don't want to know anyway). So we were made to use a different alloy that was so much harder to work with. Although less flammable once it was on fire it was still burning magnesium and all of the fun that goes along with that. The amount of dross in the molten metal was ridiculous and no one wants to be the guy standing on top of a 500 gallon pot of molten magnesium dipping out dross while their boots melt. The alloy was sticky and clogged every pump it went through. It also would stick to the die and cause buildup on the die that continually stopped production. Basically what i am saying is it is a really great metal that will probably never actually be used the way this video is suggesting. The finished products would be great but making them in mass is the problem, you can make a few a day real easy, it's mass production that i don't see being worked out. As for high pressure diecasting with magnesium, well almost no one does magnesium diecasting in the U.S. because the normal process so very dangerous, now make sure that explosive metal you are working with is put under intense pressure and things can go bad real quick. Had a press malfunction on my day off, die closed way over pressure and that caused water to get through into the die during a shot. This was a small part 1 and a half pound pour. The ram shot and a fireball hit the ceiling and blew under all of the gaurds, operator ended up with only very light burns. The explosion blew a hole through the die face the was the size of a silver dollar and it did it instantly, (when i say blew i really mean melted). Not sure if anyone out there knows about diecasting and tooling steel but we are talking about almost the hardest steel on the planet, makes iron feel light when you pick it up. Now imagine a malfunction when casting a 500 pound frame... Maybe i'm wrong and they can make it all safe which would be a very good thing, as for myself, i don't work in diecasting anymore because that is dangerous work.

Liked the ASUS Expert Book made from aluminium magnesium alloy. Durable and better than any plastic notebook, even your rubberized one Lenovo.

The only thing that im worrying about is the price of the alloy , since yttrium and calcium metal is expensive

I’ve seen a couple of your segments now and I like your insight. The notion of harvesting Mg from desalination brine is extremely interesting, especially since sodium batteries are reaching mass commercialization and such brines would seem to be a great source for that, too. This potentially solves a multitude of problems at once.

Chemist here, This can only end in flames 🔥

Everybody gangsta until your "metallic" stuff catch fire

I will go to my grave with the assertion that the Volkswagen beetle was one of the most well engineered vehicles almost 80 years ago. Yup, it had a magnesium engine block as just one of the many advanced techniques employed in its design and construction.

That was a lot more information than I expected, and very nicely presented. Thank you.

Cool video, my friend was talking about investing in magnesium but I didn’t know what all the hype was about until now

What a video! I can’t wait for the next one 👍🏻

I'm a retired chemist and engineer and like this very good video about Magnesium, a remarkable metal, It was so lightweight it was used to save weight on the B-29 bomber with the engine block cast magnesium. Unfortunately those engines ran VERY hot and had lots of engine fires. That was deadly with magnesium being a major part of the engine because that meant the metal of the engine itself burned and could not be put out with water or foam I also had to interject a comment about your misleading political attack job Actually Biden was the first president to use the buying and selling of the US strategic oil reserve to gain some control of wholesale oil prices and BROKE OPEC stranglehold on oil prices!

LIthium Batteries + Flammable Magnesium Metal,- What could go wrong???

Magnesium has already been used a lot in aircraft parts for decades.

High end electric unicycles have been starting to build the frame out of magnesium alloys to reduce weight

I live about one freedom unit (1.6km) from the R.O. plant in SoCal. It's fine, I surfed there a lot and they raise mussels to eat. It used to be an energy plant which burned kerosene, but they put solar & wind in the east county, reversed the polarity, and now I get mussels, waves and magnesium. And water.

They could get CaCO3 *and* Mg from seawater using biorock electrodes. The energy cost is low (cents per kg); unfortunately it's a batch process, not continuous.

Excellent vid m8 will be lookin into companys doing this work for sure

Hey man that was a great video, thanks for sharing!

You have

Who's that handsome strong man lifting the magnesium casting? 😁

We have ready tried magnesium, we used to make everything from magnesium, lawn mower decks, household appliances, door nobs and so on, but we stopped ... because it sucked, I would seriously invest in the idea that these new alloys and techniques aren't nearly enough to make up for magnesium's downsides

Great video, goo pacing, great thumbnail. Ill watch the next ones if they are this good.

I have never even thought of magnesium as a material to possibly make more efficient components for vehicles! Thank you for enlightening me

Mercedes: "Yeah I'm not falling for this one"

my seaweed farm is really coming together. i had several ideas for the clam shells, but this could be very viable in local economies.

I'm just imagining a future where people are Ricky Bobbying in a melting magnesium car "I'm on fire!""

Minerals from Desalination Brine is a concept i LOVE so it is really neat to see it covered on RU-vid! Sodium-Ion Batteries, Chlorine Chemicals, and even all sorts of minerals albeit a bit further further down the concentration list are all things that can be made from this route!

I'd like to see some numbers on how much weight will be saved and how that will translate into EV range.

pardon me the really ignorant question, but what are the benefits of switching to magnesium compared to other alloy that we already use?

Awesome vid! Nicely concise and information packed. Thanks

"Back in the 90s nobody cared" Oh we did, but we were children. So all we could do was just hate the fact that our parents were doing nothing and leaving it all for us. Mostly we just hoped we would be dead before this became a problem because we knew how hopelessly impossible this would all become.

I love this kind of stuff! Let's work together as a world and make everything better!

As long as it stays a solid, it’s very safe

Making fun of US ✓ Magnesium ✓ Dow's process ✓ Few things that might need to be mentioned here: Magnesium alloys can be thixomolded - injection molding using semi-liquid magnesium, gives you better part quality and uses less energy. Magnesium alloys have very good noise and vibration dampening properties, which would make cars not only lighter (Mg vs Al ~30% lighter) but quieter. Mg is also 2% of earth's crust (Al 8%), so it will likely drop to similar cost per kg as aluminium or even lower since it's extraction can be easier and cheaper, which means it will be a lot cheaper in cars, since you'll only need around 70% of material for the same strength and rigidity. It's nice to see new alloys being actually resistant - first bikes, wheels and frames made of magnesium were extremely prone to cracking. As for weight/regulators bit - it's not true that manufacturers just didn't care about making cars lighter, but because ICE's are very limited in their efficiency and design, weight wasn't really a serious issue. If you calculate how much rolling resistance (from weight) a normal ICE has, you'll be astonished it's almost nothing in average driving conditions. You also can't go nuclear on aerodynamics like in EV, since your engine bay and tons of components will still need extremely good cooling. Mg/Alu components just aren't necessary for normal ICE cars, since there is very little to gain there. For EV's it's different story - you lose 200 kg, you can add 200 kg of batteries with no net gain. Things like thixomolding are just a really good side effect of this evolution. Also EVs are getting cheaper to produce than ICEVs, and cars are mostly competing on price.

While following troubles of B Bonner's ranch high in Andes, alternate land use idea: hi-altitude desert, near equatorial Pacific coast, high solar radiation, sea water not very distant, but much lower elevation. Speculate turbine pumping ocean up to solar farm, processing there, purified water goes back to low elevation recovering potential energy with turbines, then use fresh water in agriculture etc. Or, transmit high-amperage power down to coast for water processing.

Wouldnt Norway be a super ideal location for mass Magnesium production? We have deep fjords leading to easy accessible hydro energy. Afterall most of the aluminium production was centered around norway exactly for this reason.

Thanks for yet another well thought out video

The age of Magnesium. Finally. A world without zinc is possible 🎉🎉🎉🎉

Look into an alloy called MagThor. It was magnesium-thorium alloy and it had very impressive mechanical properties. They dont make it anymore because any addition of thorium makes any alloy radioactive, but still it's pretty cool

In NDT, the magnesium I have worked with is kind of cumbersome because of its sensitivity to corrosion. So if your process involves water, like liquid penetrant, you have to dry it really fast after washing or risk it corroding. Durring humid seasons, we have to take extra care to make sure the material doesn't corrode from sitting before or after processing. I wonder why the corrosion resistant magnesium isn't utilized? Maybe NDT has to be performed before treatment that makes the magnesium corrosion resistant? Or maybe corrosion resistant magnesium is more expensive to produce? I don't know very much from the manufacturing side since I only work in NDT.

Can’t weight to see a follow up video talking about how much stronger these magnesium alloys are!

the question is what will be the impact on leaving thinks when we take out tons of magnesium out of the water in 100 years

A great comprehensive insight into this metal, thanks. Just discovered your channel, am curious about your opinion on the "minerals crisis" of the green transition { & business as usual for that matter} & what do you think of Simon P Michaux's work on this?

very well researched and convincing.

Great humor along the interesting viewpoint!

Magnesium alloy ar15 lowers have been on the market for a while for making the lightest rifle possible

you should send this to "solving the money problem" he is a big tesla guy and this will make his head explode

The fuel efficiency analysis at the beginning was on point

You put one of these magnesium parts in a car under the florida sun and it immediately combusts

Can you weld the non flammable alloys?

If magnesium didn't develop corrosion like crazy it would be awesome

If they can extract magnesium from seawater, then that means it is possible to extract uranium also from seawater, although with a different process...

I was convinced that magnesium had become a more available material recently. Especially in the manufacturing of small and sometimes complex parts. There are a few gaming mice that are made of magnesium now. At least 5 that have been released so far and a 6th that should come out soon. I knew something had to have changed for so many to have come out so quickly.

Well the supply part is dead easy, Magnesium is the 4th or 5th most abundant metal in the earths crust, and makes up a large percentage of the mantle. Its everywhere. Its just really hard and energy intensive to make into a metal.

Wow, really didn't thought of magnesium as a structural material... very interesting

my sony cameras body is made from it, absolutely georgeous material

I remember reading about a new new magnesium alloy in something like 2021, was wondering when RU-vidrs would find it.

Interesting analysis! Thanks for sharing!

I agree with the feeling, but from a data perspective, granted *citation needed* obviously, (Animal) Agriculture is more to blame than Housing itself. Especially growing water intensive crops for CAFOs and such.

Really insightful, didnt know about this, also, what size is this michael we are talking? Like, a medium? Or are we talking more like a chunk boy?

I didn’t even know that mg is a viable alternative to al. How do I buy sheets of mg? Are there local distributors?

7:25 Magnesium hydroxide melts at 350 °C .

For the stamped aluminum question, I think the biggest draw back to it is aluminums lack of malleability and how brittle it becomes at the bent points.

Nice, now I just need a way to short magnesium over 15 years.

Magnesium has been very common in rifle parts for a bit over a decade now. It was mostly used for raceguns and competition rifles for weight reduction where polymers weren’t strong enough.

I wonder if the "newly" discovered salt cycle (magnesium is in a salt form in sea water, like you explained in the video) will play a role in calculating the environmental impact of using magnesium?

Solar is NOT the cheapest energy ever produced! Typically, the cost of mining, manufacturing, transportation of solar panels is never completely accounted for. Additionally, subsidies are not considered when calculating the cost, nor is depreciation or degradation that begins on day 1. Efficiency of the panels is based on perfect atmosphere devoid of weather and pollution, and latitude is never considered. Putting industrial solar arrays in the best locations typically costs too much due to power transmission losses. Industrial solar both grossly under produces power when needed and over produces power when not needed. There is no general economical way to store sufficient power in the foreseeable future. Solar panels do work on site in off-grid applications, but so far are dismal failures in large scale applications. Modern nuclear plant designs are the foreseeable future of grid energy, especially modular molten salt designs that are demonstrably failsafe.

This is a certified Magnesium Moment (TM)

Thank you for putting this together.

The hemp car was the best option, metal cars should have been continued . But it's never been about cheap or super strong . It's all about production and volume .