Natural Zeolites

Zeolites are natural volcanic minerals with a number of unique characteristics. Natural zeolites form where volcanic rocks and ash layers react with alkaline groundwater. Zeolites also crystallize in post-depositional environments over periods ranging from thousands to millions of years in shallow marine basins. Naturally occurring zeolites are rarely pure and are contaminated to varying degrees by other minerals, metals, quartz, or other zeolites. For this reason, naturally occurring zeolites are excluded from many important commercial applications where uniformity and purity are essential.

Application of Zeolite

Zeolite can be used in Agriculture and Animal Husbandry. In agriculture, clinoptilolite (a naturally occurring zeolite) is used as a soil treatment. It provides a source of slowly released potassium. If previously loaded with ammonium, the zeolite can serve a similar function in the slow release of nitrogen. Zeolites can also act as water moderators, in which they will adsorb up to 55% of their weight in water and slowly release it under plant demand. This property can prevent root rot and moderate drought cycles.
In Animal husbandry natural zeolites have been used in animal nutrition mainly to improve performance traits and, based on their fundamental physicochemical properties, they were also tested and found to be efficacious in the prevention of ammonia and heavy metal toxicities, poisonings as well as radioactive elements uptake and metabolic skeletal defects.
In concentrated animal growing facilities, the addition of as little as 1% of a very low sodium clinoptiloite was shown to improve feed conversion, reduce airborne ammonia up to 80%, act as a mycotoxin binder, and improve bone density. It can be used in general odor elimination for all animal odors.