I know it's used for ice melter, but the question is: can I find it alone? I can find sodium, potassium and probably calcium chloride alone in sacks...
MgCl2 and KCl should make a very low melting point mixture that'd be great to have on hand for aluminum and potmetal cover/drossing flux.
Tim
-- "I've got more trophies than Wayne Gretsky and the Pope combined!" - Homer Simpson Website @
The Home Depot in Fridley MN has it. YMMV.
Ok. Didn't know if I could find it alone in anything less than ton quantities (or reagent grade, heh).
Tim
-- "I've got more trophies than Wayne Gretsky and the Pope combined!" - Homer Simpson Website @
It's called "Dust-Gard" and "Freeze-Gard" (same bag, different sides). It's also used for soil stabilization and as an additive for cattle feed. If your Home Depot doesn't have it, try a co-op. I think a
50 lb was about $12.
As a 34% solution, I had to use hastelloy or tantalum in my mag meter electrodes, or the electrodes would dissolve. I once had a power failure in the mag chloride drying plant I ran, went out and inspected, and saw mag chloride pouring from a light switch. ALL of the lighting conduits and circuits had to be replaced. Traced it to the aforementioned dissolved electrodes in a mag flow meter.
Are you sure that shit won't dissolve your crucibles?
Pete Keillor
LOL, yipe! Is that corrosion, displacement or what?
Oh, I'm sure it will, but crucibles are disposable by their nature anyway. So far my SiC has been withstanding ice melter well. The last metal crucible I was working with got a bad case of aluminum brazed in it though... salt is a wonderful flux! ;)
FWIW, an "alloy" of 25-30% (by weight) MgCl2, balance KCl, should melt around 793°F. I'm going to see if that is a workable aluminum brazing/welding flux...
Tim
-- "I've got more trophies than Wayne Gretsky and the Pope combined!" - Homer Simpson Website @
Hmmm. Maybe you'll be o.k.
We ran the cells on a eutectic mixture of KCl, NaCl, plus a few others, with MgCl2 as a minor component. Operating temperature was ~700 deg C. The cell internals were constructed of 99.5+% pure alumina Coors brick, thousands upon thousands of them, at about $25-$30 / brick (late '70's dollars). The cell had about 1' - 18" thick internal walls, and was about 50' long x 30' wide x 7' deep. The Coors brick held up extremely well as long as it wasn't thermally shocked. We ran at 200VDC, 18,000 A. That was a fun project, although damned expensive.
Pete Keillor
Nice. What'd it make? Sodium or potassium? That's another thing I'm looking into doing some day (and yes I'm aware of the dangers of highly reative metals, and I've seen Theodore Gray's sodium party webpage, not that it was a deterrent! ;))
I'm guessing silica has solubility in the salt, hence you can't use normal acid firebrick?
Sounds like it!
Tim
-- "I've got more trophies than Wayne Gretsky and the Pope combined!" - Homer Simpson Website @
Magnesium. It was a looong time ago, but I think we fed to about ~7%. At one point I was asked and did set up direct spray of 34% into the feed chamber. I had some spray nozzles machined from 1" tantalum bar. I don't know what that stuff cost, but I remember we had to put in a safe to have it. I recall the machinist saying it was nasty to machine, CCl4 coolant I think. It worked great (we had efficiency and therefore heat issues) until a clod would build up and drop in. The resulting steam explosions were rated by how many 10" blind flanges flew into the air (2-clank, 3-clank). We finally had a 6-clank (all) with blind flanges falling everywhere and decided to call it a day.
Pete Keillor
PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.