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Stibnite mineral

Stibnite is the Sb2S3 mineral species, grandfathered in the September 2026 IMA list with original-description year 1832. It is distinct from elemental antimony, dissolved antimony species, mixed antimony ores and mine wastes. The experiment below used commercial stibnite containing quartz, separately from the study's natural ore samples. No criticality designation is inherited from antimony.

Microbial & Biochemical Mechanisms (1)

Aerobic culture-associated antimony mobilization and oxidation

redox transformation Microbial

Associated Organisms: Paracoccus versutus (NCBITaxon:34007)

In aerobic laboratory incubations, the source's mine-tailings isolate XT0.6 was associated with release of antimony from commercial stibnite and appearance of dissolved Sb(V). The authors identified XT0.6 as Paracoccus versutus using a phylogeny of single-copy orthologous genes. The species identifier is not a strain or genome accession. Residual-solid XRD was interpreted as formation of the secondary Sb(V) mineral mopungite, NaSb(OH)6. This is a culture-associated transformation observation; the experiment does not isolate a direct enzymatic mineral-attack mechanism.

Experimental Context & Analytical Limits:
The commercial starting solid was fitted as 97.19 wt% stibnite and 2.81 wt% quartz and ground to 200 mesh. Main-text section 2.3.3 specifies 0.1 g in 100 mL chemically defined medium, sterilized at 120 degrees C for 20 minutes and inoculated after cooling with 1% v/v culture previously grown without Sb(III). It does not specify a washed inoculum or its cell density for this mineral experiment. Incubation was aerobic, at 30 degrees C and 150 rpm in the dark, in duplicate, with a 13-day time course. Culture pH rose from 7.2 toward 9.3; uninoculated controls started at pH 7.2, 8.2 or 9.3. The supplement instead labels the solids loading 1% w/v; this unresolved tenfold conflict precludes a mass-normalized yield. The medium refers to a prior recipe without reproducing its full composition. These are laboratory assays, not industrial deployment or recovery of an isolated antimony product.
Curated Evidence Points:
Sections 2.3.3, 2.4 and 3.2 and Figure 4A specify the commercial stibnite experiment. The text reports a dissolved Sb(V) peak of 68 mg/L on day 4 followed by a decline to about 20 mg/L by day 13. Sb(III) was reported below detection after day 1; no numerical detection limit is supplied, so this is not an exact zero. Speciation was measured by HPLC coupled to hydride generation atomic fluorescence spectroscopy after centrifugation and filtration; the filter pore size is unspecified. These are concentrations in sampled liquid, not total antimony recovered. Figure error bars are standard deviations of duplicate experiments.
Sections 3.2-3.3 and Figures 4A and 5E show different pH trajectories in inoculated and uninoculated conditions. Alkaline abiotic controls also released and oxidized antimony, with substantial dissolved antimony that could exceed the culture's peak. Initial-pH controls do not match the evolving culture pH. The relative contributions of pH-mediated chemistry, other culture products and cell activity therefore remain unresolved; faster or greater dissolution than every abiotic control is not established. Separate soluble-Sb kinetic and anaerobic assays do not establish anaerobic stibnite transformation or supply missing mineral-assay inoculum metadata.
Table S3 labels solid additions as 1% w/v, whereas main-text section 2.3.3 specifies 0.1 g per 100 mL, equivalent to 0.1% w/v. The record retains both statements without choosing an unverified correction. The alkaline-control summary is not used to compute a recovery percentage.
Section 2.4, section 3.4, Table 1 and Figure 6A report a least-squares XRD phase assignment of mopungite in the biotic commercial stibnite residue, with a fitted relative phase fraction of 8.25 wt%. This is neither an isolated-product yield nor an antimony mass balance. Changes in normalized stibnite and quartz fractions do not quantify the absolute mass of stibnite dissolved. Biotic residues were treated with 10% SDS before freeze drying, while abiotic residues were freeze dried without that treatment. Figure 7 surface morphology and elemental composition do not independently identify a molecular oxidation pathway.
Figure S5 supplies XRD patterns for the additional alkaline abiotic controls; the authors do not assign mopungite in those patterns. Lack of an assigned phase is bounded by that measurement, not proof that no secondary solid formed. Natural ore arms 5M, 25M and 27M have different compositions and are not pooled with the commercial stibnite result.

Sources & References

  1. ima_2026_09: IMA-CNMNC. The New IMA List of Minerals, September 2026. PDF page 206, Stibnite row; page 148, Mopungite row; page 1 column definitions and page 2 distribution terms.
    https://cnmnc.units.it/files/editor/IMA_Master_List_(2026-09).pdf (accessed 2026-10-11)
  2. loni2020: Loni et al. (2020). Mechanism of microbial dissolution and oxidation of antimony in stibnite under ambient conditions. Journal of Hazardous Materials 385, 121561. Complete university-hosted article-in-press version inspected; sections 2.2-2.4 and 3.2-3.4, Table 1, Figures 1 and 4-7.
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2019.121561 (accessed 2026-10-11)
  3. loni2020_supplement: Loni et al. Supplementary materials for DOI 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2019.121561. Original publisher-hosted DOCX; Table S3 and Figures S4-S5 distinguish loadings, growth observations and abiotic mineral phases.
    https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0304389419315158-mmc1.docx (accessed 2026-10-11)
  4. ncbi_versutus: NCBI Taxonomy 34007. Paracoccus versutus, species-level entry; this identifier does not identify the experimental isolate XT0.6.
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Taxonomy/Browser/wwwtax.cgi?id=34007&mode=Info (accessed 2026-10-11)

Curation History

Timestamp Curator Action Summary
2026-10-11T19:11:41.233853+00:00 codex (GPT-6; codex) CREATE Created mineral identity and an aerobic culture-associated antimony transformation observation, preserving the source loading conflict, alkaline abiotic chemistry and relative-phase rather than recovery interpretation.

Record source: data/records/stibnite.yaml