Magnesium Oxide Production by Plasma Chemical Conversion from Fluorine-Containing Industrial Waste

Abstract

This work discusses the possibility of decomposing magnesium fluoride by ionized water vapor to form solid magnesium oxide and hydrogen gas in the reaction: MgF2 + H2O → MgO + 2HF. The technology and individual apparatuses of the plasma-chemical installation are described, and the influence of the fractional composition of magnesium fluoride powder on the productivity of the plasma conversion process is considered. To improve the efficiency of the plasma pyrolysis process, a method for making magnesium fluoride briquettes was developed. The completeness of the conversion process of magnesium fluoride to an oxide was evaluated by energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy in the study of objects in scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and by X-ray diffractometry. It was found that the conversion process of magnesium fluoride to magnesium oxide has a relatively high degree of decomposition of magnesium fluoride fraction ≤75 µm. The use of the proposed processing method makes it possible to obtain pure magnesium oxide as a commercial product and to utilize fluorine-containing industrial waste.