VOL. 13, NO. 22, NOVEMBER 2018 ISSN 1819-6608 ARPN Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences ©2006-2018 Asian Research Publishing Network (ARPN). All rights reserved. www.arpnjournals.com 8953 PRODUCTION OF MAGNESIUM OXALATE FROM SEA BITTERN Hanem A. Sibak 1 , Shadia A. El-Rafie 2 , Shakinaz A. El-Sherbini1 M. S. Shalaby 2 and Rania Ramadan 2 1 Cairo University Faculty of Engineering, Egypt 2 National Research Center, Chemical Engineering and Pilot Plant Department, Egypt 3 EL Bohouth St. (former EL Tahrir St.) Dokki- Giza, Egypt E-Mail: shelrafie0000@gmail.com ABSTRACT The present study illustrates the details for precipitation of magnesium from Bittern as magnesium oxalate. The target of study is to prepare magnesium oxalate as a precursor for high purity MgO production. Bittern solution is considered as a byproduct in saline, but it is an ore reserve for many useful elements commercially produced at present based on dolomite, sea water. Its rich composition in various elements; especially magnesium salts gives bittern increasing economical concern for different industrial applications. In the present study, the mechanism of magnesium oxalate precipitation from bittern was investigated using oxalic acid. The global reaction kinetics of magnesium oxalate precipitation from seawater was determined using different molar ratios and varied pH (1-6). The effect of temperature on system kinetics was examined at temperatures between 15 to 80 ᵒ C. The effect of molar ratio on reaction conversion was investigated from 1:1 to 1:1.8 (magnesium to oxalic acid). The optimized parameters were found to be feasible to produce pure magnesium oxalate with 99% conversion at stoichiometric molar ratio at room temperature with pH=4. The effect of different calcinations temperature was studied from 450 ᵒ C to 1100 ᵒ C. All necessary instrumentation and chemical analysis needed for final products characterization have been executed including, XRD, XRF, and SEM analysis. Keywords: magnesium oxalate, precipitation, sea bittern, liquid-liquid reaction. 1. INTRODUCTION The future word-wide production of magnesium metal is projected to increase substantially over the next decade and beyond, basically as a response to the perceived requirement to reduce the on-street weight of a scope of vehicles as a major way in which fuel consumption can be improved with a simultaneous reduction in the generation of greenhouse gases. Magnesium is one of light metals having a density of 1783 kg/m 3 . This is 66% of aluminum and one sixth of steel. The strength to weight proportion of metal is 158 kNm/kg, which is higher than 130 kNm/kg for immaculate aluminum. Magnesium metal of high quality when compared to its weight proportion, these phenomena drives a focusing interest to this metal. The business required for magnesium according to ASTM B92 (2007) for 9980A is at least 99.80 wt% Mg with impurities, for example Fe, Si, Al and Ca below 0.05wt% each [1]. The metal has various industrial uses, for example, magnesium compounds are widely used in the automobiles industry [2], an alloying component in aluminum alloys (41%), die casting (32%), steel desulphurization (13%), and different applications as an industrial chemical (14%) [3]. Aluminum industry uses magnesium as alloying to improve the ductility, strength and consumption resistance of aluminum combinations [4]. Magnesium’s use in both aluminum and steel production strongly links its demand to these two other metal commodities. The use of magnesium has generally been constrained by moderately high cost of production and related energy costs. There have likewise been logical issues around alloy improvement, specifically, expanding creep resistance for drive train applications and enhancing corrosion resistance. [5]. Magnesium and its salts have been utilized in many applications for example, agriculture, insulation, construction, in compound and different industries[3]. High purity MgO is particularly utilized in food and manufacture of pharmaceutical while Mg(OH) 2 is a mainly component in the manufacture of flame retarding reagents[6]. Magnesium is found in minerals such as dolomite, magnesite, serpentinite, brucite, etc. It is the most part recovered from seawater, saline solutions and bitterns. Sea water contains about 1.3 g/L while the asset of magnesium-bearing saline around the global is evaluated to be in the billions of tones [7]. High contents of magnesium have been found in salar brines located in South America[8]and other salt lakes around the world. The production of magnesium is technically challenging, as well as having relatively high capital and operating costs. In their simplest form, the two principal methods of producing magnesium metal involve (a) high-temperature reduction of magnesium oxide and (b) electrolysis of molten magnesium chloride. Both options are characterized by having high energy requirements [9]. Alternative technologies have been studied such as Cabothermic process, Magnethermic process and SOM process. In previous study[8] two processes were proposed to remove Mg from the bittern by precipitation using sodium hydroxide and ammonium hydroxide solution. Such a step produces a mixture of Mg(OH) 2 and some impurities which requires further processing to recover valuable Mg metal. The high level of Ca in the brine would contaminate the Mg products if not removed first. In this work, it was required, to recover highly pure magnesium oxide from bittern through magnesium oxalate optimization process. The study was carried out experimentally in lab scale. The effect of different parameters on Mg oxalate precipitation were studied. The parameters varied included MR, pH and reaction