Abstract

Magnesium chloride, an important source of magnesium, chlorine and other related products was extracted from brackish water obtained from Kaa, Eagle Island, Opobo and Iwofe water fronts in Rivers State using conventional methods. This involved the concentration of the sea water from 10 L to below 1 L before reacting with CaO to precipitate Mg(OH)2.The precipitates were washed, filtered and dissolved in 200 ml of 1.0 M HCl to form MgCl2 solution. The solution was evaporated to dryness in order to crystallize MgCl2.6H2O salt. The different yields of the salts obtained were 0.79, 0.73, 0.4 and 0.2 g/L for the Kaa, Eagle Island, Opobo and Iwofe brackish waters, respectively. Physicochemical parameters such as pH, conductivity and total salinity of the salts obtained followed the same trend of Kaa> Eagle Island>Opobo>Iwofe. The salts were characterized using XRD and XRF. The XRD gave major reflections of hydrated magnesium chloride salt while the XRF showed the elemental compositions indicating the presence of magnesium as the major component of the salt.In addition, high sulphur content as well as significant presence of Sn, Sb, Al, Si, P, Fe, Cu, Zn, W and Mo were also observed on the XRFcharts of all the four salts.

Key words: MgCl2.6H2O, Rivers State, Brackish waters (Kaa, Eagle Island, Opobo, Iwofe), XRD, XRF.