30 Geological and Geochemical Investigations of Critical Minerals in New Mexico and Beyond, and Technological Advances in Extraction of Critical Minerals
We welcome contributions ranging from geological/geochemical investigations of CM mineralization to fundamental experimental and theoretical approaches to investigations of critical elements that can be applied to extraction of CMs from various types of resources.
Tuesday, 19 May 2026
1:30 PM - 5:00 PM
Alvarado B
Experimental Determination, and a Thermodynamic Model, of the Solubility of Magnesium Citrate in Concentrated Brines: Applications to Extraction of Magnesium from Produced Water
Paper number: 30-3
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 2:30 PM – 2:50 PM
Authors
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Jianjia YuNew Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Socorro, New Mexico
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Guangping XuSandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM
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Matt PowellSandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM
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Charles XuSandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico
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Sean DwyerSandia National Laboratoriies, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Abstract
Produced water contains critical minerals (CMs)/elements such as Li and Mg. In extraction of Li from produced water, divalent ions such as Ca(II) and Mg(II) usually have high concentrations and form scales that interfere the extraction process. Therefore, they must be taken out in a pretreatment process. In our designed pretreatment process with citrate materials, Ca(II) is first precipitated as calcium citrate (earlandite, [Ca3(C6H5O7)2(H2O)2]•2H2O), as earlandite has much lower solubility than magnesium citrate. After Ca(II) is sequestered, higher citrate concentrations are introduced to precipite Mg(II) as magnesium citrate. In this process, the critical mineral/element, Mg(II), is separated and extracted.
To optimize this process, we have conducted solubility measurements on magnesium citrate in order to establish its thermodynamic model, as the thermodynamic model for earlanidte has been established previously. In our solubility measurements at room temperature, the supporting solutions include 0.10 mol•kg–1, 1.0 mol•kg–1, 2.0 mol•kg–1, 3.0 mol•kg–1, 4.0 mol•kg–1, and 5.0 mol•kg‑1 NaCl. All experiments approached the equilibrium/steady state from the direction of undersaturation. Based on our experiments, a thermodynamic model for magnesium citrate in a wide of ionic strengths is developed.
Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-mission laboratory operated by National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC., a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International, Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA-0003525. This research is funded by the US DOE FECM DE-FE0032491 of the U.S. Department of Energy. SAND2025-15286A.
Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 58, No. 4
doi: 10.1130/abs/2026RM-410502
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