Smelting Magnesium Metal using a Microwave Pidgeon Method

Magnesium (Mg) is a lightweight metal with applications in transportation and sustainable battery technologies, but its current production through ore reduction using the conventional Pidgeon process emits large amounts of CO₂ and particulate matter (PM2.5). In this work, a novel Pidgeon process driven by microwaves has been developed to produce Mg metal with less energy consumption and no direct CO₂ emission. An antenna structure consisting of dolomite as the Mg source and a ferrosilicon antenna as the reducing material was used to confine microwave energy emitted from a magnetron installed in a microwave oven to produce a practical amount of pure Mg metal. This microwave Pidgeon process with an antenna configuration made it possible to produce Mg with an energy consumption of 58.6 GJ/t, corresponding to a 68.6% reduction when compared to the conventional method.