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Jadarite mineral

Jadarite is the LiNaB3SiO7(OH) mineral species in the September 2026 IMA list, with approved status and approval number 2006-036. It is distinct from the lithium and boron elements, their commodity designations, and mixed Jadar Valley sediment. The experiment below is also represented in cmmmech:lithium; this mineral-level representation is not an independent replication. No constituent-element criticality is inherited.

Microbial & Biochemical Mechanisms (1)

Transient microbial enhancement of Li release from jadarite-bearing material

bioleaching Microbial

Associated Organisms: Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans (NCBITaxon:920)

Inoculated jadarite-bearing material released lithium faster than uninoculated acidic medium during part of a laboratory time course. The uninoculated control reached similar dissolved Li by day 30, and sulfuric-acid-only leaching released more Li. Post-treatment XRD showed loss of jadarite-associated peaks, but other unidentified Li-bearing phases prevent attributing all dissolved lithium to this mineral species. Biofilm involvement was suggested without establishing an exclusive molecular cause.

Experimental Context & Analytical Limits:
Live in-lab ore-derived culture was reported as At. ferrooxidans, without a strain accession. The species identifier normalizes the reported name to Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans; the title and abstract spell the genus Acidiothiobacillus. This mapping does not independently identify the culture. Ground Jadar Valley material contained jadarite, dolomite and probertite, with possible unidentified Li-bearing phases. Triplicate biotic flasks ran statically at 23 degrees C for 30 days, targeting pH 1.8; addition of jadarite raised pH immediately and required repeated sulfuric acid doses. Acid additions differed between treatments, limiting attribution of the observed difference solely to biology. Methods state 2 g powder, 190 mL basal medium and 10 mL inoculum but label this 2% w/v; those amounts imply 1% w/v. The discrepancy is unresolved and no normalized yield is curated. No purified Li product or industrial heap operation was demonstrated.
Curated Evidence Points:
Sections 2.1-2.3 and 3.1-3.2, Fig. 1 and Table 1 support the scoped ICP-OES dissolved-Li comparison and mixed substrate identity. Acid leaching contributed substantially in all treatments.
Section 3.2 limits the advantage to a transient comparison: by day 30 the uninoculated control was similar, and acid-only leaching remained higher. Sections 3.3-3.4 and Figs. 4-5 report no material microbial enhancement for the tested spodumene- and lepidolite-bearing samples. The lepidolite sample name is retained without treating it as a unique mineral species. The result cannot be generalized to all Li ores.
The eight-file version 1 deposit was acquired and its issuing hashes verified. Jadarite day-30 values are consistent with the reported control convergence and higher acid-only result, but quantitative verification remains limited. Bioleaching workbook headers use mg/kg rather than the paper's mg/L; mineral-digestion units also require reconciliation. In Jadarite bioleaching results from ICP-OES.xlsx, Jadarite!F5 and F7 do not equal the arithmetic means of the labelled replicate cells C:E. Standalone spodumene and lepidolite workbooks contain identical Li replicate blocks at Sheet1!C3:E12, requiring provenance clarification before independent comparison. These are unresolved mappings and inconsistencies, not identified corrections or specific refutations of the paper's qualitative comparisons. The files provide no loading or per-flask acid-dose ledger to resolve the published contradictions. No deposited number was corrected or imported as a normalized yield or quantitative benchmark.
Sections 2.4-2.5 and 3.2, Figures 2-3 associate inoculation with biofilm-like material and loss of jadarite, dolomite and probertite peaks. Some lower-intensity jadarite peaks remained in the uninoculated control. A new peak near 2-theta 27.9 degrees occurred in both conditions; the authors' boric-acid interpretation is not treated as an unambiguous phase identification or a recovered-product measurement. Table 1 omits the hydroxyl group from its jadarite formula; mineral identity here follows the IMA formula, not that incomplete experimental table notation.

Sources & References

  1. ima_2026_09: IMA-CNMNC. The New IMA List of Minerals, September 2026. PDF page 103, Jadarite row; page 1, column definitions; page 2, distribution terms.
    https://cnmnc.units.it/files/editor/IMA_Master_List_(2026-09).pdf (accessed 2026-10-11)
  2. kirk2024: Kirk et al. (2024). Bioleaching of lithium from jadarite, spodumene, and lepidolite using Acidiothiobacillus ferrooxidans. Frontiers in Microbiology 15:1467408. The genus spelling is retained from the published title.
    https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2024.1467408 (accessed 2026-10-11)
  3. kirk2024_data_v1: Kirk et al. (2024). Bioleaching of lithium from jadarite, spodumene and lepidolite using Acidiothiobacillus ferrooxidans. Mendeley Data, version 1, published 14 November 2024; CC BY 4.0. Published genus spelling retained.
    https://doi.org/10.17632/djkf7tkm8d.1 (accessed 2026-10-11)
  4. ncbi_ferrooxidans: NCBI Taxonomy 920 - Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans (species)
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Taxonomy/Browser/wwwtax.cgi?id=920&mode=info (accessed 2026-10-11)

Curation History

Timestamp Curator Action Summary
2026-10-11T09:02:06.347855+00:00 codex (GPT-6; codex) CREATE Created IMA-grounded jadarite identity with mixed-feed leaching, transient comparison and source-data limitations.

Record source: data/records/jadarite.yaml