Zeolite Answer

Historically, mineral zeolite was discovered in 1756 by a Swedish mineralogist named Freiherr Axel Fredrick Cronstedt, who derived the name from the Greek words zein and lithos meaning “boiling stones”. Over the next 200 years chemists and mineralogists studied zeolites and discovered the dehydration, adsorption, and cation exchange properties of this mineral.

Clinoptilolite (a type of mineral zeolite) was discovered in the USA in the Hoodoo mountains in Wyoming in the 1930’s, but zeolites weren’t developed in the USA until synthetic zeolites (molecular sieves) were produced in the 1950’s. The first natural zeolite products produced in Arizona from 1961 to 1976. In 1962 a small quantity of Clinoptilolite mined in SE, Idaho was used by the U.S.D.O.E. in Idaho as a ground water barrier for fission product radionuclides, but full scale operation was delayed until 2001. Several other zeolite deposits have been mined in the western USA over the past decade, but mineral impurities (e.e., clays, calcium carbonates, etc.) have limited the commercial development.

Interest in natural zeolites started to take off in the 1960’s. From the late 1960’s through 2009 there was a slow, but progressive increase in zeolite mineral, mining and product development. Zeolite mining is carried out from deposits by selective, open pit mining methods, then the mined mineral is crushed and screened to the desired size. Drying is used to to activate the product. The natural zeolite products are sold as fine powders (200 mesh or finer) to granular form (14 x 40 mesh to 4 x 8 mesh) for cation exchange, water filtration, soil amendment, odor control, animal feed supplements and heavy metal removal from water. Human nutritional supplement and detox products have been commercially developed since 2005.

AdvancedBioNutritional Research

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