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Boron-ore concentration tailings secondary resource

Residual solids generated during concentration of boron-bearing ore. The curated feed is the minus-25-mm solid waste from the Espey concentrator of the Eti Mine Boric Acid Operation in Emet, Kütahya, Turkey. It contains colemanite, muscovite, quartz and dolomite according to the study's XRD characterization. This processing residue is distinct from unprocessed borate ore, traded borate products, elemental boron and a pure colemanite mineral. The sampled composition does not define every concentrator residue; no criticality designation is inherited from its constituents.

Microbial & Biochemical Mechanisms (1)

Culture-associated alkali-metal leaching from boron concentrator waste

bioleaching Microbial

Cultures reported as Aspergillus niger mobilized lithium, rubidium and cesium into filtered leachate from the characterized mixed waste. Organic-acid dissolution and complexation are proposed explanations; no matched abiotic leaching series establishes the microbial increment or the necessity of either chemical route. The laboratory assay does not demonstrate isolated metal products or industrial deployment.

Experimental Context & Analytical Limits:
A living fungal culture was supplied by the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Erzurum Technical University; no strain accession or sequence authentication is reported. Collected waste was dried at 110 degrees C for 48 h, homogenized, pulverized and sieved through 38 micrometres. Medium, waste and containers were autoclaved at 121 degrees C for 15 min. A seven-day preculture used sucrose at 100 g/L with yeast extract, nitrate and mineral salts. Leaching used 250 mL flasks with 100 mL medium, 2.5 mL spore suspension and 1 g waste, at 30 degrees C and 125 rpm for 31 days. Spore concentration is unspecified. Samples on days 4, 10, 13, 18, 24 and 31 were centrifuged, filtered through 0.45 micrometres and stabilized in 0.65% nitric acid for ICP-MS. Figure 2 reports means and standard deviations with N=5, without resolving whether those replicates were independent cultures or analyses. Equation 1 defines the extraction percentage from leachate concentration and volume relative to initial feed metal concentration and mass.
Curated Evidence Points:
Materials pp. 2-3 establishes concentrator-waste origin and preparation; Table 1 reports the feed's measured Li, Rb and Cs concentrations. Figure 2 and Bioleaching Kinetic p. 4 show increasing assayed release over time, with reported day-31 extraction of approximately 79% Li, 37% Rb and 30% Cs. These are feed-relative leachate percentages, not isolated-product yields or exact dated mg/kg observations.
Methods and Figure 2 provide no uninoculated or matched organic-acid leaching series. Figure 1 labels its complexes as possible; solution speciation, mineral-specific metal release and causal contributions of individual metabolites were not directly resolved. The pH account on p. 3 explicitly cites Ertan 2023. This later article is not treated as independent replication of the earlier fungal study; its exact experimental overlap remains unresolved.
The p. 4 text gives 43.71% Li at day 24, whereas Figure 2 plots that point near 35%; no exact intermediate yield is adopted. Table 2 and Figure 3 compare fitted shrinking-core models, which do not independently prove a controlling biochemical mechanism. Figure 3d's rubidium diffusion ordinate is inconsistent with the printed equation and Figure 2 endpoint, so kinetic coefficients and a definitive chemical-control conclusion are not adopted. The experiment did not vary temperature to establish Arrhenius behavior.

Sources & References

  1. ertan2026: Ertan (2026). Investigation of Bioleaching Kinetics of Valuable Metals in Boron Waste. Journal of Anatolian Environmental and Animal Sciences 11:1-8. DOI 10.35229/jaes.1832038; Materials and Methods pp. 2-3, Results pp. 3-7, Tables 1-2 and Figures 1-3. Publisher PDF prints 13 March 2026; landing page displays 24 March 2026. Full eight-page primary article and figures inspected.
    https://doi.org/10.35229/jaes.1832038 (accessed 2026-10-11)

Curation History

Timestamp Curator Action Summary
2026-10-11T12:13:07Z codex (GPT-6; codex) CREATE Created a processing-derived resource with primary fungal leaching evidence and explicit controls, publication-overlap and kinetic limits.

Record source: data/records/boron-ore-concentration-tailings.yaml