Superman’s krypnotine exists, but it isn’t green!

We have all heard of the kryptonite, that famous mineral of an intense fluorescent green color with an energetic radiation capable of cancelling out Superman’s super powers.

The movie “Superman returns”, came out on July 2006, and in one of the scenes, the famous Kryptonite appears as part of a museum exhibit where its chemical composition, sodium silicate hydroxide, lithium, boron, and fluorine are observed

It is possible that the movie director, Bryan Singer, got based on unique mineral recently discovered some months before, more precisely, it was discovered on April 2006, at the Jadar Valley (Loznica, Serbia).

This new mineral, identical in structure to Superman's Kryptonite except for the absence of the Fluoride (F) element, was named "Jadarite" in honor of the place where it was discovered, although it could not have been called Kryptonite either, because there is already a gaseous chemical in the periodic table called Krypton (Kr), and this new ore is obviously not gaseous.

Unfortunately, and although it is an important mineral due to the presence of lithium, it is not green but rather white. Despite this disappointment, the mineralogy scientists who are the authors of the finding, at least console us with the property of the Jadarite, which is able to change color, from white to a fluorescent pink orange, when illuminated with ultraviolet light.

If the color of the fluorescence had been green, it would have been impressive because of its resemblance to Superman's Kryptonite.

             Superman with Kryptonite

      Piece of Jadarita (Sèrbia)

Bibliographic references about Jadarite:

- Stanley, C.J., Jones, G.C., Rumsey, M.S., Blake, C., Roberts, A.C., Stirling, J.A.R., Carpenter, G.J.C., Whitfield, P.S., Grice, J.D., LePage, Y. (2007): Jadarite, LiNaSiB3O7(OH), a new mineral species from the Jadar Basin, Serbia. European Journal of Mineralogy, 19, 575-580.

- Whitfield, P.S., Y. Le Page, J.D. Grice, C.J. Stanley, G.C. Jones, M.S. Rumsey, C. Blake, A.C. Roberts, J.A.R. Stirling and G.J.C. Carpenter (2007): LiNaSiB3O7(OH) - novel structure of the new borosilicate mineral jadarite determined from laboratory powder diffraction data. Acta Crystallogr. B63, 396-401.

- New Minerals Approved in 2006: November 2006 - IMA-CNMNC website

• Chemical composition of Jadarite: 

LiNaSiB₃O₇(OH)

• Jadarite scientific data: https://www.mindat.org/min-31570.html

• Discovery news: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6584229.stm