[ noun ] any of a family of glassy minerals analogous to feldspar containing hydrated aluminum silicates of calcium or sodium or potassium; formed in cavities in lava flows and in plutonic rocks <noun.substance>
Zeolite \Ze"o*lite\, n. [Gr. ? to boil + -lite: cf. F. z['e]olithe.] (Min.) A term now used to designate any one of a family of minerals, hydrous silicates of alumina, with lime, soda, potash, or rarely baryta. Here are included natrolite, stilbite, analcime, chabazite, thomsonite, heulandite, and others. These species occur of secondary origin in the cavities of amygdaloid, basalt, and lava, also, less frequently, in granite and gneiss. So called because many of these species intumesce before the blowpipe.
{Needle zeolite}, needlestone; natrolite.
The first step in a complicated process that has taken years to set up is to filter the liquid waste through columns filled with zeolite, a sandy clay.
Bein said he and Enzel used synthetic zeolite crystals, each about 1 micron in diameter _ in their research, which was presented during an April meeting of the American Chemical Society in Dallas.