Abstract
Several methods for determining the hydrogen content in magnesium have been adopted so far. However, the results of earlier investigations show a poor agreement due to the difficulty of analysis resulting from the nature of magnesium itself. The main difficulty in this sort of work, arises from the high vapor pressure of magnesium at higher temperatures. Magnesium vapor causes contamination of a vessel and reabsorption of hydrogen evolved from a sample may occur.
Present investigation was carried out by three different methods in order to extract hydrogen from magnesium samples. They are vacuum fusion, vacuum evaporation, and vacuum extraction of a sample sealed in palladium tube or in thin iron foil. The determination of the amount of hydrogen evolved from the magnesium sample was carried out with an ordinary gas analyzer. Among those three methods, the method of vacuum extraction with a sample sealed in palladium tube showed the highest reliability in determining the hydrogen content in magnesium.
Magnesium produced by the Pidgeon process contains about 18 to 22 cc of hydrogen per 100 grams of magnesium.
