Paramontroseite (V
4+O
2) is a relatively rare orthorhombic
vanadium oxide Vanadium oxide mainly refers to:
* Vanadium(II) oxide (vanadium monoxide), VO
* Vanadium(III) oxide (vanadium sesquioxide ''or'' trioxide), V2O3
* Vanadium(IV) oxide (vanadium dioxide), VO2
* Vanadium(V) oxide (vanadium pentoxide), V2O5
Various o ...
mineral in the Ramsdellite Group. Synthetic paramontroseite may have applications in medicine, batteries and electronics.
Name
The name ''paramontroseite'' is derived from the Greek ''παρα'' (para), meaning near, and , a related mineral.
The name was chosen due to the mineral's paramorphic relationship to the host mineral montroseite.
Montroseite is named after
Montrose County, Colorado
Montrose County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 42,679. The county seat is Montrose, Colorado, Montrose, for which the county is named.
Montrose County com ...
, USA, where it was first found.
Names in other languages include Paramontroseit (German), paramontroseita (Spanish), парамонтрозеит (Russian) and 副黑钒矿 副黑铁钒矿 (Chinese).
Synonyms are
Inorganic Crystal Structure Database
Inorganic Crystal Structure Database (ICSD) is a chemical database founded in 1978 by Günter Bergerhoff at the University of Bonn in Germany and I. D. Brown at McMaster University in Canada. It is now produced by FIZ Karlsruhe in Europe and t ...
(ICSD) 22303 and
Powder Diffraction File (PDF) 25-1003.
Occurrence
Paramontroseite is associated with montroseite and .
It is found in relatively unoxidized
Colorado Plateau
The Colorado Plateau is a physiographic and desert region of the Intermontane Plateaus, roughly centered on the Four Corners region of the Southwestern United States. This plateau covers an area of 336,700 km2 (130,000 mi2) within w ...
-type uranium–vanadium ores in
sandstone
Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...
s.
The type locality is Bitter Creek Mine, Paradox Valley, Uravan District, Montrose County, Colorado, USA.
In the USA it is found in Montrose County, Colorado,
San Miguel County, Colorado
San Miguel County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 census, the population was 8,072. The county seat is Telluride. The county is named for the San Miguel River.
History
San Miguel County was given the Spanis ...
,
Mesa County, Colorado
Mesa County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 census, the population was 155,703, making it the most populous county in western Colorado, and 11th most populous in the state. The county seat and most populous mu ...
,
Emery County, Utah
Emery County is a County (United States), county in east-central Utah, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 9,825. Its county seat is Castle Dale, Utah, Castle Dale, and the largest city is Huntington, Utah, Hu ...
,
Apache County, Arizona
Apache County is a County (United States), county in the northeast corner of the U.S. state of Arizona. Shaped in a long rectangle running north to south, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, its population was 66,021. The county ...
,
McKinley County, New Mexico
McKinley County is a county in the northwestern section of the U.S. state of New Mexico. As of the 2020 United States census, its population was 72,902. Its county seat is Gallup. The county was created in 1901 and named for President Willia ...
and
Fall River County, South Dakota
Fall River County is a county in the U.S. state of South Dakota. As of the 2020 census, the population was 6,973. Its county seat is Hot Springs. The county was founded in 1883. It is named for the Fall River which runs through it.
Geography ...
.
It has also been reported from locations in the Czech Republic,
Mendoza Province
Mendoza (), officially the Province of Mendoza, is a province of Argentina, in the western central part of the country in the Cuyo region. It borders San Juan to the north, La Pampa and Neuquén to the south, San Luis to the east, and the r ...
, Argentina and the
Mounana
Mounana is a town in Gabon. It lies on the N3 road and from 1958 until the 1990s was a major uranium mining centre. The mine is now closed, and it is now primarily a centre for agriculture
Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock p ...
uranium mine near
Franceville
Franceville is one of the four largest cities in Gabon, with a population of 110,568 at the 2013 census. It lies on the Mpassa River and at the end of the Trans-Gabon Railway and the N3 road. It grew from a village named Masuku.
Overview
P ...
, Gabon.
Paramontrosite has also been found in an outcrop on the Van Irvine Ranch in the Pumpkin Buttes area of
Wyoming
Wyoming ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States, Western United States. It borders Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho t ...
, USA, associated with
sulfide
Sulfide (also sulphide in British English) is an inorganic anion of sulfur with the chemical formula S2− or a compound containing one or more S2− ions. Solutions of sulfide salts are corrosive. ''Sulfide'' also refers to large families o ...
s in red sandstone.
It is found in a zone where the sandstone changes color from red to gray.
The black paramontroseite cements grains of sand into nodular masses that enclose smaller pyrite masses.
The irregular concretionary masses are up to across.
Vanadium salts have given a greenish coating to the exposed surfaces of these masses.
The masses are anomalously radioactive and the surrounding sandstone is weakly radioactive.
The radioactivity is mostly caused by tiny specks of
coffinite
Coffinite is a uranium-bearing silicate mineral with formula: U(SiO4)1−x(OH)4x.
It occurs as black incrustations, dark to pale-brown in thin section. It has a grayish-black streak. It has a brittle to conchoidal fracture. The hardness of coffin ...
in the paramontroseite.
When a section is polished the paramontroseite completely fills the gaps between the grains of sand.
It is very soft and has a gray color that is slightly lighter than quartz gray.
There is strong anisotrophism and many bright multi-colored internal reflections.
Deposits of montroseite (V,Fe)OOH and paramontroseite VO
2 have been found in the Saltwash Sandstone Member of the Upper Jurassic
Morrison Formation
The Morrison Formation is a distinctive sequence of Upper Jurassic sedimentary rock found in the western United States which has been the most fertile source of dinosaur fossils in North America. It is composed of mudstone, sandstone, siltston ...
in the Colorado Plateau.
From the
diffraction
Diffraction is the deviation of waves from straight-line propagation without any change in their energy due to an obstacle or through an aperture. The diffracting object or aperture effectively becomes a secondary source of the Wave propagation ...
characteristics of the paramontroseite there seem to be two distinct generations: a primary paramontroseite with good crystalline structure and a product of montroseite oxidation with poor crystalline structure.
The paramontroseite found in this region is among the neutral minerals in the mid-range of vanadium valence (+4) above the primary ore of montroseite (+3) but below minerals such as
carnotite
Carnotite is a potassium uranium vanadate radioactive mineral with chemical formula K2( U O2)2( VO4)2·3 H2O. The water content can vary and small amounts of calcium, barium, magnesium, iron, and sodium are often present.
Occurrence
Carnotite ...
(+5) and
pascoite (+5).
Lifecycle
Paramontroseite is a metastable form of
vanadium dioxide (VO
2) that results from
oxidation
Redox ( , , reduction–oxidation or oxidation–reduction) is a type of chemical reaction in which the oxidation states of the reactants change. Oxidation is the loss of electrons or an increase in the oxidation state, while reduction is ...
of montroseite.
It is formed by
dehydrogenation
In chemistry, dehydrogenation is a chemical reaction that involves the removal of hydrogen, usually from an organic molecule. It is the reverse of hydrogenation. Dehydrogenation is important, both as a useful reaction and a serious problem. At ...
of montroseite.
Paramontroseite seems to be the most common initial product of oxidation of montroseite.
The primary difference between the crystal structures of the two minerals is that the oxygen–oxygen distance increases from 2.63Å in montroseite to 3.87Å in paramontroseite due to the loss of hydrogen in the latter.
The vanadium–oxygen distances are also somewhat shorter in paramontroseite than in montroseite, as would be expected when the vanadium is oxidized from +3 to +4 when the hydrogen is removed.
The montroseite, VO(OH), is deposited in crystalline masses in a sandstone matrix by some unknown process.
Usually iron occurs in place of some of the vanadium.
Oxygen in the air or groundwater then oxidizes the crystallised montroseite at temperatures under 50 °C through the reaction:
:2VO(OH) + O
2 → 2VO
2 + H
2O
During the solid state alteration process the hydrogen atoms migrate through the crystal structure to the surface, where they combine with oxygen.
In the process there is a slight shift in the crystal structure, but the structure remains intact.
The vanadium-oxygen bonds have not been broken and the hexagonal close-packed oxygen framework has not been disrupted.
In some cases there may be an intermediate "diffuse A" phase.
The process by which montroseite is altered to paramontroseite seems analogous to the
magnetite
Magnetite is a mineral and one of the main iron ores, with the chemical formula . It is one of the iron oxide, oxides of iron, and is ferrimagnetism, ferrimagnetic; it is attracted to a magnet and can be magnetization, magnetized to become a ...
→
maghemite
Maghemite (Fe2O3, γ-Fe2O3) is a member of the family of iron oxides. It has the same formula as hematite, but the same spinel ferrite structure as magnetite () and is also ferrimagnetic. It is sometimes spelled as "maghaemite".
''Maghemite'' ...
,
lepidocrocite
Lepidocrocite (γ-FeO(OH)), also called esmeraldite or hydrohematite, is an iron oxide-hydroxide mineral. Lepidocrocite has an orthorhombic crystal structure, a hardness of 5, specific gravity of 4, a submetallic luster and a yellow-brown stre ...
→
maghemite
Maghemite (Fe2O3, γ-Fe2O3) is a member of the family of iron oxides. It has the same formula as hematite, but the same spinel ferrite structure as magnetite () and is also ferrimagnetic. It is sometimes spelled as "maghaemite".
''Maghemite'' ...
, and
goethite
Goethite (, ) is a mineral of the diaspore group, consisting of iron(III) oxide-hydroxide, specifically the α- polymorph. It is found in soil and other low-temperature environments such as sediment. Goethite has been well known since ancient t ...
→
hematite
Hematite (), also spelled as haematite, is a common iron oxide compound with the formula, Fe2O3 and is widely found in rocks and soils. Hematite crystals belong to the rhombohedral lattice system which is designated the alpha polymorph of . ...
processes.
Paramontroseite is not stable and is destroyed by weathering, replaced by minerals of the
corvusite type.
The paramontroseite reacts under neutral or acid conditions to form many compounds such as
vanadyl vanadate and metal vanadates such as
hewettite,
hummerite,
pascoite and
rossite.
Paramontroseite may dissolve in slightly alkaline conditions, then combine with Ca
++ to form :
:4VO
2 + 2OH
− + Ca
++ → CaV
4O
9 + H
2O
Possible applications
Autophagy
Autophagy (or autophagocytosis; from the Greek language, Greek , , meaning "self-devouring" and , , meaning "hollow") is the natural, conserved degradation of the cell that removes unnecessary or dysfunctional components through a lysosome-depe ...
is a process of cellular degradation that is essential in preserving
homeostasis
In biology, homeostasis (British English, British also homoeostasis; ) is the state of steady internal physics, physical and chemistry, chemical conditions maintained by organism, living systems. This is the condition of optimal functioning fo ...
of cells.
It is often thought that when
autophagosome
An autophagosome is a spherical structure with double layer membranes. It is the key structure in macroautophagy, the intracellular degradation system for cytoplasmic contents (e.g., abnormal intracellular proteins, excess or damaged organelles, i ...
s encapsulate and trap inorganic
nanoparticle
A nanoparticle or ultrafine particle is a particle of matter 1 to 100 nanometres (nm) in diameter. The term is sometimes used for larger particles, up to 500 nm, or fibers and tubes that are less than 100 nm in only two directions. At ...
s they may be unable to degrade them and the cell's well-being may be threatened.
However, experiments have shown that nanocrystals of paramontroseite induce cyto-protective autophagy in cultured
HeLa
HeLa () is an immortalized cell line used in scientific research. It is the oldest human cell line and one of the most commonly used. HeLa cells are durable and prolific, allowing for extensive applications in scientific study. The line is ...
cells.
It is possible that this may have value in therapies.
Montroseite and paramontroseite microspheres have been synthesized by
hydrothermal carbonization of
sucrose
Sucrose, a disaccharide, is a sugar composed of glucose and fructose subunits. It is produced naturally in plants and is the main constituent of white sugar. It has the molecular formula .
For human consumption, sucrose is extracted and refined ...
and
calcinated to form V
2O
3-VO
2-C core-shell
microsphere
Microparticles are particles between 0.1 and 100 μm in size. Commercially available microparticles are available in a wide variety of materials, including ceramics, glass, polymers, and metals. Microparticles encountered in daily life includ ...
s.
These have been used experimentally as
cathode
A cathode is the electrode from which a conventional current leaves a polarized electrical device such as a lead-acid battery. This definition can be recalled by using the mnemonic ''CCD'' for ''Cathode Current Departs''. Conventional curren ...
materials for a
lithium-ion battery
A lithium-ion or Li-ion battery is a type of rechargeable battery that uses the reversible intercalation of Li+ ions into electronically conducting solids to store energy. Li-ion batteries are characterized by higher specific energy, energ ...
.
Y. Xu and colleagues of the
University of Science and Technology of China
The University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) is a public university in Hefei, China. It is affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and co-funded by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Ministry of Education of the People' ...
have shown that synthetic montroseite VOOH hollow structures can convert topochemically to paramontroseite without altering the size and appearance of the structures.
Both forms appear to have potential in lithium-ion batteries as
anode
An anode usually is an electrode of a polarized electrical device through which conventional current enters the device. This contrasts with a cathode, which is usually an electrode of the device through which conventional current leaves the devic ...
materials.
Monoclinic
In crystallography, the monoclinic crystal system is one of the seven crystal systems. A crystal system is described by three Vector (geometric), vectors. In the monoclinic system, the crystal is described by vectors of unequal lengths, as in t ...
vanadium dioxide VO
2(M) is potentially of great value for applications such as intelligent temperature sensors and smart windows.
The classic solid state transformation from vanadium precursors to
rutile
Rutile is an oxide mineral composed of titanium dioxide (TiO2), the most common natural form of TiO2. Rarer polymorphs of TiO2 are known, including anatase, akaogiite, and brookite.
Rutile has one of the highest refractive indices at vis ...
VO
2(R) is slow and costly.
A transformation from
goethite
Goethite (, ) is a mineral of the diaspore group, consisting of iron(III) oxide-hydroxide, specifically the α- polymorph. It is found in soil and other low-temperature environments such as sediment. Goethite has been well known since ancient t ...
VOOH to synthetic "paramontroseite" VO
2 to the desired monoclinic VO
2(M) promises to greatly reduce cost and time.
Classification
Paramontroseite was first described before 1959.
It is a member of the Ramsdellite Group.
It is classified as follows:
*Strunz 8th edition: 4/F.08-30.
*
Nickel-Strunz 10th edition: 4.DB.15a
*Dana 8th edition: 4.4.11.1
*Hey's CIM Reference: 7.12.3
Properties
Physical
Physical properties of Paramontroseite include
:
Chemistry
The X-ray
powder diffraction
Powder diffraction is a scientific technique using X-ray, neutron, or electron diffraction on powder or microcrystalline samples for structural characterization of materials. An instrument dedicated to performing such powder measurements is ca ...
pattern for a Bitter Creek mine sample is 3.39 (100), 2.645 (50), 4.35 (35), 2.213 (35), 1.426 (35), 2.479 (25), 2.179 (25).
In this sample the chemistry was:
:
A sample from Matchless mine, Colorado, USA had chemistry:
:
The measured chemistry of a microprobe fragment in the gray phase by the RRUFF project gave metals in the ratio:
V
4+ (82%), Fe
3+ (9%), U
6+ (4%) and Al (2%), with one metal atom per two oxygen atoms.
The lightest phase was
uranophane
Uranophane ( Ca( U O2)2( SiO3O H)2·5 H2O), also known as uranotile, is a rare calcium uranium silicate hydrate mineral that forms from the oxidation of other uranium-bearing minerals. It has a yellow color and is radioactive.
Alice Mary Weeks, ...
.
Optical
Paramontroseite is
opaque
Opacity is the measure of impenetrability to electromagnetic or other kinds of radiation, especially visible light. In radiative transfer, it describes the absorption and scattering of radiation in a medium, such as a plasma, dielectric, shie ...
and black to grayish black in color.
Its optical class is
biaxial
In crystal optics, the index ellipsoid (also known as the optical indicatrix or sometimes as the dielectric ellipsoid) is a geometric construction which concisely represents the refractive indices and associated polarizations ...
.
It has a sub-metallic
luster and a black
streak.
From the
Gladstone–Dale relation
The Gladstone–Dale relation is a mathematical relation used for optical analysis of liquids, the determination of composition from optical measurements. It can also be used to calculate the density of a liquid for use in fluid dynamics (e.g., ...
(KC = 0.393), the NCalc is 2.61 where Ncalc=Dcalc*KC+1, or 2.57 where Ncalc=Dmeas*KC+1.
Crystallography
Paramontroseite crystal properties include:
:
Endmatter
Notes
Citations
Sources
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Paramontroseite
Vanadium minerals
Orthorhombic minerals
Minerals in space group 62
Oxide minerals