The zeolites are a group of more than 35 soft, white minerals comprised mostly of aluminum, silicon, and oxygen and having a crystal structure featuring spacious pores or rings. Zeolites often form as crystals in small cavities in basaltic rocks or as...

These are also called molecular sieves because of their intricate pore structure. Both naturally occurring and synthetic zeolites function as ion exchangers. Early zeolites were natural, the most widely used being glauconite. see Ion...

Zeolites (Greek, zein, "to boil"; lithos, "a stone") are minerals that have a micro-porous structure. The term was originally coined in the 18th century by a Swedish mineralogist named Axel Fredrik Cronstedt who observed, upon rapidly heating a natural...

Worldwide natural zeolite production remained at about 3.6 Mt (3.9 million st) during 2003. China continued to be the largest producer of natural zeolites, followed by Cuba, Germany, Japan and South Korea. As in previous years, most of the production was used in...

Ask a geologist and a chemist about zeolites and you are likely to get very different responses. Most mineral collectors think of the wonderful crystals of stilbite, natrolite, heulandite, and other silicates that are commonly found in the vesicles of basalts (a.k.a. trap...