This paper presents a comparative chemical and mineralogical study of birnessite (BIR-AZ) collected from Azul mine (Carajás Province, Brazil) and its synthetic analogous synthesized by sol-gel method. The products were characterized by X-ray diffraction, FT-Raman spectroscopy, thermal analysis (TG-DTA), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and ICP-MS techniques. The results obtained confirm the presence of well-defined layer structures having monoclinic system, C2/m space group and the unit cell parameters are: BIR-AZ, a = 5.148 Å; b=2.843 Å, c=7.175 Å, and β = 100.75º; K-OL-SG, a = 5.150 Å; b = 2.846 Å, c = 7.214 Å, and β= 101.29º. The birnessite from Azul mine ores shows thermal stability up to 600 ºC, whereas its synthetic analogous, above 900 ºC. FT-Raman bands at 635, 570 and 410 cm-1 were identified and attributed to the Mn-O and K-O bond deformations in the birnessite structure. SEM images reveals that the manganese oxide mineral consist of platy packed particles of about 1 to 5 µm. By contrast, the morphology of the synthetic compound displays randomly arranged globules (<1 µm).
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