Buserite is a hydrated layered

manganese Manganese is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Mn and atomic number 25. It is a hard, brittle, silvery metal, often found in minerals in combination with iron. Manganese was first isolated in the 1770s. It is a transition m ...

oxide mineral The oxide mineral class includes those minerals in which the oxide anion (O2−) is bonded to one or more metal alloys. The hydroxide-bearing minerals are typically included in the oxide class. Minerals with complex anion groups such as the sil ...

with nominal chemical formula . It was named after

Swiss Swiss most commonly refers to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Swiss may also refer to: Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina * Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses * Swiss Café, an old café located ...

chemist professor Wilhelm Buser (1917-1959), who first identified it in 1952 in deep-sea manganese nodules. Buser named it 10 Å

manganate In inorganic nomenclature, a manganate is any negatively charged molecular entity with manganese as the central atom.. However, the name is usually used to refer to the tetraoxidomanganate(2−) anion, MnO, also known as manganate(VI) because it c ...

because the periodicity in the layer stacking direction was 10 Å. It was renamed buserite in 1970 by the nomenclature commission of the

International Mineralogical Association Founded in 1958, the International Mineralogical Association (IMA) is an international group of 40 national societies. The goal is to promote the science of mineralogy and to standardize the nomenclature of the 5000 plus known mineral species. ...

(IMA). More recent crystallographic studies have shown that buserite is not a distinct mineral species, but a two-water layer form of the one-water layer phyllomanganate birnessite, which has a characteristic periodicity of 7 Å perpendicularly to the MnO₂ layers. When taken out of

water Water is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula . It is a transparent, tasteless, odorless, and Color of water, nearly colorless chemical substance. It is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known liv ...

, buserite may lose one layer of water and transform into birnessite. Some buserite minerals are resistant to

dehydration In physiology, dehydration is a lack of total body water that disrupts metabolic processes. It occurs when free water loss exceeds intake, often resulting from excessive sweating, health conditions, or inadequate consumption of water. Mild deh ...

to various degrees, however, depending on the structure of the interlayer. Buserite of marine ferromanganese nodules transforms into birnessite upon heating to 110 °C for several hours. Natural buserite is most often finely grained and poorly-crystallized. The MnO₂ layers are generally stacked at random like in vernadite, which is a turbostratic birnessite. For this reason, buserite is also named 10 Å vernadite in the literature. The relationship between the

crystal structure In crystallography, crystal structure is a description of ordered arrangement of atoms, ions, or molecules in a crystalline material. Ordered structures occur from intrinsic nature of constituent particles to form symmetric patterns that repeat ...

and the properties of hydrated phyllomanganates were studied by Newton and Kwon (2018) using molecular simulations: Buserite reacts strongly with trace metals due to the presence of octahedral Mn⁴⁺ vacancies in the MnO₂ layer. The defective structure of phyllomanganates from the buserite-birnessite family affords them a key geochemical role in many environmental systems that affect soil and water composition via

cation exchange Ion exchange is a reversible interchange of one species of ion present in an insoluble solid with another of like charge present in a solution surrounding the solid. Ion exchange is used in softening or demineralizing of water, purification of ch ...

and

adsorption Adsorption is the adhesion of atoms, ions or molecules from a gas, liquid or dissolved solid to a surface. This process creates a film of the ''adsorbate'' on the surface of the ''adsorbent''. This process differs from absorption, in which a ...

of trace metals. Slight variations in their structural and

chemical composition A chemical composition specifies the identity, arrangement, and ratio of the chemical elements making up a compound by way of chemical and atomic bonds. Chemical formulas can be used to describe the relative amounts of elements present in a com ...

often result in a dramatic difference in their chemical reactivity. The enrichment in Co²⁺, Ni²⁺ and Cu²⁺ of 10 Å vernadite in manganese nodules is manifold.

References

Manganese minerals Oxide minerals {{oxide-mineral-stub