Lithium-Rich Mineral Found In Only One Place On Earth Has Its Recipe Finally Revealed

Jadarite is a truly unique mineral. It is rich in lithium, and given our society's hunger for the metal – key to batteries and the energy transition away from fossil fuels – there is a lot of interest in its properties and how it forms. So far, it has been found only in one location on Earth. But scientists have finally worked out how it formed, which might lead to more deposits or better ways to extract it.

In 2004, researchers from the mining group Rio Tinto found this peculiar mineral in Jadar (pronounced "Yadar"), Serbia. Its chemical formula showed that it was a sodium lithium borosilicate hydroxide, which had no matches in the scientific literature. It was a new mineral, although its chemical formula had already been used in fiction: it was the kryptonite from the movie Superman Returns.

It is not as pretty as kryptonite; it doesn’t glow green and it is not radioactive. But the deposit in Jadar has enough lithium to make batteries for up to 90 percent of the European electric vehicles expected to get on the road in the coming decades. The extraction of this mineral is a complex political quagmire between Serbia and the European Union.

Researchers now know the very precise steps for the formation of jadarite, and it is unsurprising that it is rare. The conditions are hyper-specific. You need to have lithium-rich volcanic glass, alkaline-rich terminal lakes, and clay minerals turning into crystalline structures. These specific chemical changes are all extremely rare.

“Similar to baking a cake, everything needs to be measured and exact for this rare mineral to form,” co-author Dr Francesco Putzolu, from the Natural History Museum, London, said in a statement. “For instance, if the mineral ingredients are not just right, if the conditions are too acidic or too cold, jadarite will not form. The criteria seem to be so precise that we’ve not yet seen it replicated anywhere else on Earth!”

While the process is clearly so specific to be currently unique, knowing the steps gives researchers a smaller range of possibilities when looking for other deposits. There might not be jadarite inside every rock, but maybe the enormous Serbian deposit is not the only example on Earth.

“As the demand for lithium continues in the race toward renewable energy, if mined, jadarite can offer huge potential. This process brings us closer to identifying other possible deposits by unravelling the formation conditions in the lab,” added Dr Robin Armstrong, geologist at the Museum and co-author on the paper.

The paper is published in Nature Geoscience.