Due to its high affinity to noble metals the recycling of magnesium is not trivial and the removal of corrosion promoting elements a challenge. Especially for the separation of nickel no industrially efficient method exists. In this work a reduction of the nickel content in contaminated magnesium-aluminum alloys down to 100ppmw could be achieved by the combined use of aluminum and zirconium. Although this residual content does not satisfy the highest purity grade of standard magnesium-aluminum alloys (10-50ppm) this still remains a great step towards an efficient magnesium recycling process.