Mumpton F A
Edit Inc., P.O. Box 591, Clarkson, NY 14430, USA.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1999 Mar 30;96(7):3463-70. doi: 10.1073/pnas.96.7.3463.
For nearly 200 years since their discovery in 1756, geologists considered the zeolite minerals to occur as fairly large crystals in the vugs and cavities of basalts and other traprock formations. Here, they were prized by mineral collectors, but their small abundance and polymineralic nature defied commercial exploitation. As the synthetic zeolite (molecular sieve) business began to take hold in the late 1950s, huge beds of zeolite-rich sediments, formed by the alteration of volcanic ash (glass) in lake and marine waters, were discovered in the western United States and elsewhere in the world. These beds were found to contain as much as 95% of a single zeolite; they were generally flat-lying and easily mined by surface methods. The properties of these low-cost natural materials mimicked those of many of their synthetic counterparts, and considerable effort has made since that time to develop applications for them based on their unique adsorption, cation-exchange, dehydration-rehydration, and catalytic properties. Natural zeolites (i.e., those found in volcanogenic sedimentary rocks) have been and are being used as building stone, as lightweight aggregate and pozzolans in cements and concretes, as filler in paper, in the take-up of Cs and Sr from nuclear waste and fallout, as soil amendments in agronomy and horticulture, in the removal of ammonia from municipal, industrial, and agricultural waste and drinking waters, as energy exchangers in solar refrigerators, as dietary supplements in animal diets, as consumer deodorizers, in pet litters, in taking up ammonia from animal manures, and as ammonia filters in kidney-dialysis units. From their use in construction during Roman times, to their role as hydroponic (zeoponic) substrate for growing plants on space missions, to their recent success in the healing of cuts and wounds, natural zeolites are now considered to be full-fledged mineral commodities, the use of which promise to expand even more in the future.
自1756年被发现以来的近200年里，地质学家们认为沸石矿物以相当大的晶体形式存在于玄武岩和其他暗色岩地层的孔洞和洞穴中。在那里，它们受到矿物收藏家的珍视，但其数量稀少且具有多矿物性质，无法进行商业开采。随着合成沸石（分子筛）业务在20世纪50年代末开始兴起，在美国西部和世界其他地方发现了由湖泊和海水中火山灰（玻璃）蚀变形成的富含沸石的巨大矿床。这些矿床被发现含有高达95%的单一沸石；它们通常呈水平状，易于采用地表开采方法。这些低成本天然材料的性质与许多合成材料相似，自那时起人们付出了巨大努力，基于其独特的吸附、阳离子交换、脱水-再水化和催化性能开发其应用。天然沸石（即在火山成因沉积岩中发现的沸石）一直并正在被用作建筑石材、水泥和混凝土中的轻质骨料和火山灰、纸张填料、从核废料和沉降物中吸收铯和锶、农业和园艺中的土壤改良剂、从城市、工业和农业废物及饮用水中去除氨、太阳能冰箱中的能量交换器、动物饲料中的膳食补充剂、消费者除臭剂、宠物垫料、从动物粪便中吸收氨以及肾透析装置中的氨过滤器。从罗马时代用于建筑，到在太空任务中作为种植植物的水培（沸石栽培）基质，再到最近在伤口愈合方面取得的成功，天然沸石现在被认为是成熟的矿物商品，其用途有望在未来进一步扩大。
