Magnesium

Latrobe Magnesium's (LMG) innovative production process extracts magnesium metal and valuable by-products from magnesium rich waste feedstocks. Its Latrobe Valley demonstration plant project will process almost 100% of fly ash into valuable products including magnesium, Supplementary Cementitious Material (SCM), silica, char, iron oxide and calcium carbonate. LMG's low CO2 process can address potentially hazardous waste stockpiles and produce valuable products with downstream environmental benefits.

Magnesium

Magnesium is commonly referred to as a “Green Metal”. Magnesium has:
  • The lightest weight ratio of all the structural materials
  • The best strength-to-weight ratio of any commonly used structural metal; it is stronger and 75% lighter than steel and 33% lighter than aluminium
  • Excellent dimensional stability as well as high impact and dent resistance
  • Exceptional dampening capacity and low inertia making it ideally suited for parts that undergo frequent and sudden changes in motion direction
  • In high purity alloys, better corrosion resistance than carbon, steel and some aluminium alloys
  • 100% recyclability

Magnesium is increasingly used in the manufacture of products like cars, planes, laptop computers, mobile phones and power tools. Magnesium enables lower greenhouse gas emissions over a product’s life cycle through light weighting and increasing durability. For example, there is growing demand for magnesium in the burgeoning electric vehicle market to off set the weight of heavy batteries.

Magnesium has a range of manufacturing advantages including:
  • Thin-walled die casting means structures can be made as one piece rather than assembled from several components. This simplifies design, lowers assembly costs, improves reliability, minimises tooling costs and reduces joints, fasteners and welds
  • Consistent and predicable shrink rates mean minimal distortion or casting stress
  • Low heat content means less energy is required to reach casting temperatures and castings cool quicker so cycle times are faster
  • Lower temperatures and low affinity for iron reduce the effects of thermal fatigue and erosion on dies so they last longer

Questions?

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