This scientific and technical report covers the work carried out during the originally specified 6 month period of performance from July 6, 2007 through January 6, 2008 and during the no-cost extension from January 6, 2008 through April 6, 2008. The work performed under this project is documented according to the project tasks as outlined in the contract and outlined in the task plan below. In brief, Task 1 involved the construction and assembly of the coating system and supporting infrastructure, which was used for the scale-up and production of 1-lb batches of coated magnesium powder. Task 2 focused on the process development required to scale batch sizes from the Phase II batch size of 30g to the desired pre-production batch size of 1-lb. The powder produced in task 2 was analyzed in task 3 to determine the characteristics of the as-coated material and the moisture-induced aging behavior. Finally, task 4 focused on the delivery of the 1-lb batches of coated magnesium, which constituted the final deliverable of the Phase III project. During the course of the original period of performance, initial 1-lb batches of each powder type were prepared at the end of the scale-up process, Task 2. A 3-month no-cost extension was requested in order to characterize the aging behavior of those powders over a time sufficient to benchmark their performance and provide a baseline for the production batches. During this time a strong effort was also placed on improvement of the performance of coated ground magnesium, and a major improvement of performance was achieved.
