Magnesium sulfide reacts with oxygen to form the corresponding sulfate, magnesium sulfate. MgS reacts with water to give hydrogen sulfide and magnesium hydroxide. In the BOS steelmaking process, sulfur is the first element to be removed. Sulfur is removed from the impure blast furnace iron by the addition of several hundred kilograms of magnesium powder by a lance. Magnesium sulfide is formed, which then floats on the molten iron and is removed. MgS is a wide band-gap direct semiconductor of interest as a blue-green emitter, a property that has been known since the early 1900s. The wide-band gap property also allows the
Magnesium iron hexahydride Magnesium iron hexahydride Magnesium iron hexahydride is an inorganic compound with the formula MgFeH. It is a green diamagnetic solid that is stable in dry air. The material is prepared by heating a mixture of powdered magnesium and iron under high pressures of hydrogen: The compound is isomorphous with KPtCl, i.e., their connectivities and structures are the same. The [FeH] centre adopts octahedral molecular geometry with Fe-H distances of 1.56 Å. The Mg centres are bound to the faces of the octahedron, with Mg-H distances of 2.38 Å. Several related compounds are known including salts of [RuH], [OsH], and [PtH]