The Australian company EcoMag is working on a project to utilize wastewater, known as brine, to recover hydrated magnesium carbonate, or HMC.
The current focus is on the flows generated by the operations of Dampier Salt, a sea salt producer with over 60 percent of Rio Tinto's shares in the Pilbara region.
Magnesium is the third most abundant element dissolved in seawater. The first two, sodium and chlorine, are removed as sodium chloride by manufacturers such as Dampier.
EcoMag Executive Director of Public Affairs Walter Munro explained that HMC is a high-purity, high-quality magnesium product that currently costs about $ 1,250 per tonne.
According to Munroe, the advantage of extracting it from salt water is that it can achieve levels of purity greater than 99 percent, while ore can yield a maximum of 85-95 percent.
In the mining industry, magnesium oxide is used specifically for hydrometallurgical processes as an alkali for the precipitation of metals from acid streams. In other words, the compound promotes the optimal recovery of valuable metals such as cobalt, nickel and copper from acid leach solutions.
To become a major supplier of magnesium compounds, EcoMag is proposing to build a $ 130 million refinery in Karrath, Western Australia.
But to do this, EcoMag needs to complete the regulatory approval process from the Western Australian Department of Water and Environment and the regulators.
