Development of an electrolysis based system to continuously recover magnesium from seawater

The continuous resources recovery system utilizing the water electrolysis reaction was developed for recovering magnesium resources from seawater. A set of experiments for forming magnesium hydroxide from the deep-ocean water were carried out at a cathode channel separated by an ion exchange membrane. The ion concentrations of magnesium and calcium in the solution obtained from the outlet of channel were measured by ICP to evaluate the usefulness of the proposed method for the resources recovery system. Moreover, configuration and component in the precipitate formed in the proposed method were analyzed by SEM and EDS respectively. It was found that all magnesium contained in seawater can be precipitated by the proposed method. Moreover, the formation reaction of magnesium hydroxide depends on the quantity of electricity per unit volume of seawater since the production of OH(−) on the cathode electrode is proportional to the quantity of electricity in the water electrolysis reaction. Subsequently, the effect of deaeration from the deep-ocean water on the purity of magnesium hydroxide was investigated for forming pure magnesium hydroxide. It was found that 99% pure magnesium hydroxide can be created by applying deaeration to the deep-ocean water due to preventing formation of calcium carbonate since the carbon dioxide is removed from the seawater by deaeration.