Magnesium primary production

The category business/processes/production/magnesium/primaryproduction/ is aimed towards industry professionals to enable them to prepare inventories of greenhouse gas emissions from primary magnesium production. The magnesium-containing ores which release CO₂ during calcination are dolomite (MgCa(CO₃)₂) and magnesite (MgCO₃). Theoretical emission factors are provided for use in situations where facility or site-specific data is not available. The actual CO₂ emissions per kilogram magnesium produced will be higher than the theoretical emissions due to losses of magnesium in the process chain. The methodology provided in this category represents the Tier 1 (default values) and Tier 2 (facility- or country-specific values) approaches described by the IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (NGGIP).

How to use this category

Discover allows the user to caculate emissions from the primary magnesium production from dolomite or from magnesite. Each of these exists as a drill-down option in this category, so can be calculated individually. To use this category use the magnesiumProductionByRawMaterial drill-down to select the raw material for magnesium production from the following options:

1. magnesite
2. dolomite

The only required profile item value is the quantity of magnesium produced, productQuantity. The emission factor for raw material has a default value provided, but this can be over-ridden, using the massCO2PerMassProduct profile item value, by the user if more precise site or country-specific values are known. Over-riding the default values represents the Tier 2 approach described by the IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (NGGIP) and should be used where users have facility-specific data.