Preface

*"There are no things that would be so valuable teaching as nature" Nikola Tesla*

Today's global challenges such as climate change, pandemics, lack of drinking water, and so on, require scientists and experts to work even harder in finding answers and solutions to such challenges, all with the goal to protect the environment, achieving sustainable development as well as survival of mankind on Earth.

Natural resources, such as zeolite minerals, have an inexhaustible potential for scientific research and application. Based on the research of natural zeolites, synthetic zeolites have been obtained in laboratory conditions, and both types have application in many researched areas (e.g., water, soil, industries, biochemistry, medicine, etc.). Scientific research is intense in still insufficiently researched areas of their application, such as the absorption of greenhouse gases and application of zeolite membranes in virology.

From the discovery of zeolites until today, scientific interest in their research and application has not decreased because zeolites can have a significant role in numerous sustainable processes due to their ecological and economical suitability and especially due to their unique structure and specific physical and chemical properties.

This book is organized into three sections: "Adsorption and Diffusion Processes in Zeolite Materials," "Layered Zeolites," and "Application of Zeolite Materials."

The introductory chapter, "The Past, Present and the Future of Zeolite Science," presents a historic overview of the discovery of zeolite materials. From the literature we find that the basis of mineralogy was set in 371–297 BC (Teofrast). A sudden increase in mineral research was noted in the eighteenth century, and based on Cronstedt's observations the first properties of zeolites were discovered. Further research during the nineteenth century, and in parallel with the development of instrumental techniques, led to the discovery of new properties of zeolite materials, which contributed to intensive growth and production of synthetic zeolites during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. A great number of scientific research, patents, and industrial applications of zeolites from the twentieth century until today enabled the growth of the global zeolite market. Climate changes, threats to mankind such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and changes in economic and political direction present new challenges for scientists and experts in research and application of these amazing materials.

The first section of the book addresses the understanding of the structure, characteristics, and physical-chemical properties of zeolites as well as diffusion and adsorption processes in research of zeolite materials. The second chapter in this section, "Competitive Adsorption and Diffusion of Gases in a Microporous Solid," develops a new, fast, and accurate analytical method for the calculation of the coefficients of co-diffusing gases in the intra- and inter-crystallite spaces of

**II**

**Chapter 7 123**

Zeolites Applications in Veterinary Medicine

*by Marc Simona and Tulcan Camelia*

microporous solid (i.e., ZSM 5 zeolite) using high-performance methods (iterative gradient methods of residual functional minimization and analytical methods of influence functions), mathematical co-adsorption models, and NMR spectra of each adsorbed gas in the bed.

The third chapter in this section, "Zeolites as Chameleon Biomaterials: Adsorption of Proteins, Enzymes, Foods, Drugs, Human Cells, and Metals on Zeolite Membranes with Versatile Physics-Chemical Properties," describes the physical-chemical properties of zeolites (obtained by hydrothermal synthesis) in interaction with transition metals, proteins, enzymes, drugs, food, and human cells as well as the development of physicochemical properties of zeolite membranes for biomedical and biotechnological applications.

The fourth chapter in this section, "Anomalous Diffusivity in Porous Solids: Levitation Effect" presents interesting and extensive research that describes deviations from standard or expected diffusion in porous solids, called the levitation effect. In addition to the simulation of anomalous diffusion in zeolite pores by guest monatomic molecules, simulation is performed on anisotropic molecules (n-pentane, isopentane, and neopentane).

The second section of the book contains one chapter, "New Trends in Layered Zeolites," which examines a new family of microporous materials called layered zeolites. It presents a very interesting overview of recently developed synthetic methods and modifications of layered zeolites as well as possible future development of layered zeolites that could contribute to the expansion of the layered zeolite family.

The third section of the book contains two chapters that discuss scientific research and development of zeolite materials for application in different areas. The first chapter in this section, "Zeolites: An Emerging Material for Gas Storage and Separation Applications," describes the development of zeolite membranes of three different types of zeolite material (DDR, SAPO 34, BIK) for separation of different gas mixtures and storage of CO2. These zeolites/surface-modified zeolites and their membranes have potential application for environmental protection in the near future. The second chapter in this section, "Zeolites Applications in Veterinary Medicine," provides an extensive overview of zeolite applications in veterinary medicine.

> **Karmen Margeta** University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia

> > **1**

Section 1

Adsorption and Diffusion

Processes in Zeolite

Materials

**Anamarija Farkaš** Institute for Development and International Relations, Zagreb, Croatia Section 1
