Rapid fabrication of nanostructured magnesium hydroxide and hydromagnesite via microwave-assisted technique

Magnesium hydroxide and hydromagnesite nano and microstructures have been prepared by using microwave-assisted technique. Magnesium chloride, magnesium acetate and magnesium metal have been used as a magnesium source. Urea has been added to the solution with controlled pH = 10 while the temperature was 220 °C. The hydrolysis of urea under these hydrothermal conditions leads to the production of hydromagnesite instead of magnesium hydroxide. The as-prepared samples were investigated using scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermographmetric analysis (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). SEM shows a wide distribution of pseudo-hexagonal nanodisk up to microdisk. Spherical rosette morphology has been noticed in the samples in which the urea has been used. XRD reveals the existence of Mg(OH)2 with some impurities which can be attributed to the high concentrations of the initial materials and absorption of carbon dioxide from the air when urea is not employed and hydromagnesite when urea is present in the synthesis. TGA showed a weight loss within the temperature range of 360–450 °C with a total percentage of weight loss 29% which can be attributed to the (Mg(OH)2). However in the case of synthesis with urea the weight loss was 57% which is the expected value for hydromagnesite. The production of pure hydromagnesite utilizing hydrothermal methods has been reported; the synthesis reported here is much simpler and faster.