Basic magnesium carbonate has been widely used in our daily lives including painting, toothpaste and polymer production made from plastic and rubber. The thermal decomposition of basic magnesium carbonate has been rarely published. Researchers from the Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS-IPE) prepared the basic magnesium carbonate and studied the thermal decomposition process of basic magnesium carbonate. They demonstrated that there were two steps in the process and deduced the kinetic equations as well.

At first, basic magnesium carbonate was prepared from magnesite. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were used to measure the characteristics of the production. The results confirmed that prepared sample was in sheet structure with the chemical composition 4MgCO3·Mg(OH)2·H2O.

Thermogravimetry-differential thermogravimetry (TG-DTG) were used to study the thermal decomposition process of basic magnesium carbonate in air. The results demonstrated the two steps in the process including dehydration reaction and complete decomposition reaction. According to Coats-Redfern equation and Malek method, the mechanism functions of the two steps were D3 and A1.5, respectively.

 The results of the research have been published on Journal of central south university of technology.