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Vaterite mineral

Calcium carbonate mineral with ideal formula CaCO3, distinct from calcite, aragonite, amorphous calcium carbonate, calcium as an element and commercial calcium carbonate products. The September 2026 IMA list gives approved status and 1962 special-procedure notation; this is not a new-mineral accession. The curated laboratory evidence concerns vaterite assigned in processed mixed solids from one geothermal-brine experiment, without a pure-phase yield or inherited lithium criticality designation.

Microbial & Biochemical Mechanisms (1)

Vaterite assigned in ureolytic geothermal-brine treatment solids

biomineralization Microbial

Associated Organisms: Sporosarcina pasteurii (NCBITaxon:1474)

Prepared S. pasteurii DSM 33 biomass with urea generated mixed carbonate-bearing solids during treatment of one natural geothermal brine. The authors assigned vaterite together with calcite and magnesite by powder XRD. This mineral-level observation shares the Rehmanji2025 experiment with cmmmech:calcite and cmmmech:lithium-bearing-geothermal-brine; those records are not independent replications. It does not identify the proportion of Ca, Mg, Mn or Sr entering vaterite, demonstrate a pure vaterite yield, establish a vaterite-to-calcite transformation sequence, or recover lithium into a separate product.

Experimental Context & Analytical Limits:
DSM 33 cells were grown in TSB with 500 mM urea at 28 degrees C and 180 rpm, harvested in mid-log phase at 3200 g for 15 min and PBS-washed. Unsterilized natural brine from an unnamed Cornish geothermal project was treated under reported non-growth conditions: 100 mL in 250 mL flasks, initial OD600 0.05-0.4, 500 mM added urea, 28 degrees C, static for 24 h, in triplicate. The source-designated B. subtilis ATCC-2385 comparator and a separate brine-plus-urea/no-added-cell arm provide treatment comparisons, but no matched-pH chemical or killed-cell phase-control series is reported. The comparator strain designation remains unverified. Section 4.6 sampled 15 mL at 24 h, centrifuged at 3200 g for 15 min and dried the pellet at 60 degrees C for 24 h for XRD; the reported dry-pellet quantity is not a mass-balance mineral yield. Phase assignments concern processed mixed solids, without quantitative refinement or an in situ phase time course. Cow-urine/CaCl2 assays and spent-yeast biomass cultivation are separate arms. Laboratory flask treatment and slurry tests do not establish industrial deployment.
Curated Evidence Points:
Sections 2.1-2.2, 4.1-4.2 and 4.5-4.7 and Figures 1-2 support prepared biomass, the natural-brine experiment, carbonate-bearing solids and ex situ characterization. The narrow claim is vaterite's source-assigned presence in the mixed treatment product; morphology of an individual particle alone does not identify its polymorph.
Figure S7 (p. 24) explicitly labels vaterite as phase 1 alongside calcite and magnesite. Table S1 describes the brine composition; the XRD operating table is on p. 5 with its S5 caption on p. 6. Figure S5 (pp. 21-22) is the separate no-added-cell comparison. These observations are not pure-phase mineral yields.
The main text misreferences the XRD plot as S6, which actually shows growth and pH. Its initial 10-minute claim conflicts with Figure 1's hour axis and Section 4.2's hour sampling schedule. Mg/Mn percentage claims do not consistently match Figure 1, whose B. subtilis Mn series also declines. No removal percentage or ten-minute rate is assigned to vaterite. Section 4.4 does not clearly specify solid/liquid separation for each ICP-OES metal aliquot, preventing a stronger dissolved-only interpretation.
Figure S5's inoculated Mn/Sr series differs from Figure 1 and is not pooled with it. Table S7 saturation indices differ from the ranges quoted in Section 2.2, including negative magnesite entries; modeled saturation cannot confirm a mineral phase. Table S2 omits the Li wavelength and S9 labels aqueous Li retention as recovery. No lithium product, mineral-specific incorporation or conversion between mg/L and mg/kg is inferred.

Sources & References

  1. ima_2026_09: IMA-CNMNC. The New IMA List of Minerals, September 2026; definitions pp. 1-2 and Vaterite row p. 227, Ca(CO3), A, 1962 s.p.
    https://cnmnc.units.it/files/editor/IMA_Master_List_(2026-09).pdf (accessed 2026-10-14)
  2. handbook_vaterite: Handbook of Mineralogy, Vaterite, CaCO3; Mineral Data Publishing, version 1, 2001-2005. Mineral identity and polymorphism.
    https://www.handbookofmineralogy.org/pdfs/vaterite.pdf (accessed 2026-10-14)
  3. rehmanji2025: Rehmanji, Skeffington, Hudson-Edwards and Newsome (2025). Circular economy approaches to microbially-induced carbonate precipitation for bioprocessing of geothermal brine for lithium recovery. RSC Advances 15:43263-43274; DOI 10.1039/d5ra06824j. Sections 2.1-2.2, 4.1-4.2 and 4.4-4.7; Figures 1-2.
    https://doi.org/10.1039/d5ra06824j (accessed 2026-10-14)
  4. rehmanji2025_si: Rehmanji et al. (2025), supporting information to DOI 10.1039/d5ra06824j, 27-page RA-015-D5RA06824J-s001.pdf. Tables S1-S2/S5/S7 and Figures S1-S7; actual XRD figure is S7 p. 24, not the main text's S6 reference.
    https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC12590475/supplementaryFiles (accessed 2026-10-14)
  5. dsm33: DSMZ catalogue, Sporosarcina pasteurii DSM 33, type strain, strain 22.
    https://www.dsmz.de/collection/catalogue/details/culture/DSM-33 (accessed 2026-10-14)
  6. ncbi_pasteurii: NCBI Taxonomy 1474, Sporosarcina pasteurii, species.
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Taxonomy/Browser/wwwtax.cgi?id=1474&mode=Info (accessed 2026-10-14)

Curation History

Timestamp Curator Action Summary
2026-10-14T12:19:25Z codex (GPT-6; codex) CREATE Created mineral identity and source-assigned mixed-product laboratory evidence; preserved processed-solid and control limits, source contradictions and shared experiment lineage without phase-specific yields or criticality inheritance.

Record source: data/records/vaterite.yaml