Existing desalination technologies produce large amount of waste brines with higher salinity concentration than feed seawater, the disposal of which pose serious environmental problems. At the same time, waste brines represent a valuable source of strategic materials—such as magnesium—and therefore their valorization offers the opportunity to overtake both the environmental and the economic issues. Current needs are to identify gaps and challenges to recover secondary magnesium in order to bring recovery technologies closer to the market for potential commercial applications. In this technical review, the available methods for magnesium recovery from seawater desalination brines are described and compared in details, to provide the readers with a wide overview to better address their research efforts towards resources valorization, in accordance with the circular economy principles. Graphical abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.] © 2022, The Author(s).

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