Magnesite industry in the Slovak Republic

The reserve base of magnesite in the Slovak Republic is 3,400 million tonnes of magnesium raw material. Identified world resources of magnesite total some 12 billion tonnes, and there are also large resources of magnesium-bearing substitutes such as dolomite, brucite, and olivine. Furthermore, magnesium compounds can be recovered economically from well and lake brines, and fromsea water. The latter, which contains 0.13% by weight of magnesium, is a major source of this raw material and its compounds. This paper presents a summary of the development of the mining and treating of magnesite in Slovakia and the history of the magnesite industry. The paper summarizes the production capabilities of the Slovak magnesite industry and its potential for survival in competition with other world producers. The prosperity of the Slovak magnesite industry’s exploitation of domestic raw-material resources also has unfavorable influences on the basic components of the environment, i.e. soil, water, and surrounding air and biota. These unfavorable influences are caused by the emissions above all from thermal technologies involved in the processing of magnesite raw-material. At present, the level of emissions is significantly reduced by the installation of dust collecting devices.