Palygorskite

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Palygorskite

Palygorskite or attapulgite is a magnesium

Magnesium

Magnesium is a chemical element with the symbol Mg, atomic number 12, atomic weight 24.3050 and common oxidation number +2.Magnesium, an alkaline earth metal, is the ninth most abundance of the chemical elements in the universe by mass....
aluminium

Aluminium

Aluminium or aluminum is a silvery white and ductile member of the boron group of chemical elements. It has the symbol Al; its atomic number is 13....
phyllosilicate

Silicate minerals

The silicate minerals make up the largest and most important class of rock-forming minerals, comprising approximately 90 percent of the crust of the Earth....
with formula (Mg

Magnesium

Silicon

Silicon is the most common metalloid. It is a chemical element, which has the symbol Si and atomic number 14. The atomic mass is 28.0855....
₄O

Oxygen

Oxygen no O2 produced; 2) O2 produced, but absorbed in oceans & seabed rock; 3) O2 starts to gas out of the oceans, but is absorbed by land surfaces and formation of ozone layer; 4-5) O2 sinks filled and the gas accumulates]]...
₁₀(OH

Hydrogen

Hydrogen is the chemical element with atomic number 1. It is represented by the chemical symbol H. At standard temperature and pressure, hydrogen is a colorless, odorless, nonmetallic, tasteless, highly combustion and explosive Diatomic molecule gas with the molecular formula H2....
)·4(H₂O

Water

Water is a common chemical substance that is essential for the survival of all known forms of life. In typical usage, water refers only to its liquid form or States of matter, but the substance also has a solid state, ice, and a gaseous state, water vapor or steam....
) which occurs in a type of clay

Clay

Clay is a naturally occurring material composed primarily of fine-grained minerals, which show plasticity through a variable range of water content, and which can be hardened when dried and/or fired....
soil

Soil

Soil is the naturally occurring, unconsolidated or loose covering on the Earth's surface. Soil is composed of particles of broken rock that have been altered by chemical and environmental processes including weathering and erosion....
common to the Southeastern United States

Southeastern United States

The US Southeast is the eastern portion of the Southern United States, but the Census Bureau does not provide a standard definition of a "Southeast" region of the United States, and organizations that need to subdivide the US are free to define a "Southeast" region to fit their needs....
. It is one of the types of fuller's earth

Fuller's earth

Fuller's earth is any non-plastic clay or claylike earthy material that can be used to decolorize, filter, and purify animal, mineral, and vegetable oils and greases....
.

Seven to ten percent attapulgite clay mixed with the eutectic salt, sodium sulfate

Sodium sulfate

Sodium sulfate is the sodium salt of sulfuric acid. Anhydrous, it is a white crystalline solid of formula Na2SO4 known as the mineral thenardite; the hydrate Na2SO4?10H2O has been known as Glauber's salt or, historically, sal mirabilis since the 17th century....
decahydrate (Glaubers salt), will keep anhydrous

Anhydrous

As a general term, a substance is said to be anhydrous if it contains no water. The way of achieving the anhydrous form differs from one substance to another....
crystal

Crystal

A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituent atoms, molecules, or ions are arranged in an orderly repeating pattern extending in all three spatial dimensions....
s suspended in the solution where they will hydrate during phase change and hence contribute to the heat absorbed and released when Glaubers salt are used for heat storage.

name attapulgite is derived from the U.S.

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Name

The name attapulgite is derived from the U.S. town of Attapulgus, Georgia

Attapulgus, Georgia

Attapulgus is a city in Decatur County, Georgia, Georgia , United States. The population was 492 at the 2000 census.The town's name is an Indian word meaning "Dogwood"; due to the abundance of attapulgite, which makes up the clay soil throughout much of the Southeast , the mineral was named after the town....
, in the extreme southwest corner of the state, where the mineral is abundant. It is surface-mined

Surface mining

Surface mining is a type of mining in which soil and rock overlying the mineral deposit are removed. It is the opposite of underground mining, in which the overlying rock is left in place, and the mineral removed through shafts or tunnels....
in the area, dry-ground and air-separated into precise particle sizes, and transported in covered hopper

Covered hopper

A covered hopper is a railroad freight car. Structurally, it is very similar to an open-top hopper car in that the carbody consists of a large hopper with unloading chutes at the bottom....
cars via the railroad, and is also shipped in paper bags and bulk bags by truck

Truck

File:Red truck USA.JPGA truck is a type of motor vehicle commonly used for carrying goods and materials. Some light trucks are relatively small, similar in size to a passenger automobile....
.

The name palygorskite is given after the place in the Ural Mountains

Ural Mountains

The Ural Mountains are a mountain range that runs roughly north and south through western Russia. They are usually considered as the natural boundary between Europe and Asia....
where it was discovered.

Social use

Palygorskite is known to have been a key constituent of the pigment

Pigment

A pigment is a material that changes the color of light it Reflection as the result of selective color absorption. This physical process differs from fluorescence, phosphorescence, and other forms of luminescence, in which the material itself emits light....
called "Maya Blue", which was used notably by the pre-Columbian

Pre-Columbian

The pre-Columbian era incorporates all archaeology of the Americas in the history of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the Americas continents....
Maya civilization of Mesoamerica

Mesoamerica

Mesoamerica or Meso-America is a region and cultural area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Honduras and Nicaragua, within which a number of pre-Columbian society flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and 16th centuries....
on ceramics, sculptures, murals and (most probably) Maya textiles. The clay mineral was also used by the Maya as a curative for certain illnesses, and there is evidence to show it was also added to pottery temper. A Maya region source for palygorskite was unknown until the 1960s, when one was found at a cenote
Cenote

A cenote is a sinkhole with exposed rocky edges containing groundwater. It is typically found in the Yucat?n Peninsula and some nearby Caribbean islands....
on the Yucatán Peninsula

Yucatán Peninsula

The Yucat?n Peninsula, in southeastern Mexico, separates the Caribbean Sea from the Gulf of Mexico, with the northern coastline on the Yucat?n Channel....
near the modern township of Sacalum, Yucatán

Yucatán

Yucat?n is one of the States of Mexico of Mexico, located on the north of the Yucat?n Peninsula. The Yucatan peninsula includes three states: Yucat?n, Campeche, and Quintana Roo; all three modern states were formerly part of the larger historic state of Yucat?n in the 19th century....
. A second possible site was more recently (2005) identified, near Ticul

Ticul

Ticul is a small city and its surrounding municipalities of Mexico in western Yucat?n States of Mexico, Mexico. It is located at some 100 km south of the state capital city of M?rida, Yucat?n....
, Yucatán

Yucatán

Yucat?n is one of the States of Mexico of Mexico, located on the north of the Yucat?n Peninsula. The Yucatan peninsula includes three states: Yucat?n, Campeche, and Quintana Roo; all three modern states were formerly part of the larger historic state of Yucat?n in the 19th century....
.

The Maya Blue pigment synthetic was also manufactured in other Mesoamerican regions and used by other Mesoamerican cultures, such as the Aztec

Aztec

Aztec is a term used to refer to certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl and who achieved political and military dominance over large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the Late post-Classic period in Mesoamerican chronology....
s of central Mexico. The blue coloration seen on Maya and Aztec codices

Aztec codices

Aztec codices are books written by pre-Columbian and colonial-era Aztecs. These codices provide some of the best primary sources for Aztec culture....
, and early colonial-era manuscripts and maps, is largely produced by the organic-inorganic mixture of añil

Añil

A?il is the common name of the flowering plant Indigofera suffruticosa in the family Fabaceae. In Hawaiian it is known as either ?Iniko/Inikoa, or Kolu; in Fijian it is called Vaivai; the Samoans call it La?au mageso; on Guam it is called Aniles; and in Tonga it is referred to as ?akauveli ....
leaves and palygorskite, with smaller amounts of other mineral additives. Human sacrificial victims in Postclassic Mesoamerica were frequently daubed with this blue pigmentation.

Extraction

Three companies are involved in the industrial extraction and processing of gellant grade attapulgite clay within the same Attapulgus deposit: Active Minerals International, LLC, Engelhard

Engelhard

Engelhard Corporation is a former Fortune 500 company headquartered in Iselin, New Jersey, New Jersey. It is credited with developing the first production catalytic converter....
/BASF

BASF

BASF SE is a German chemical company and the largest chemical company in the world. BASF originally stood for Badische Anilin- und Soda-Fabrik ....
, and Zemex Corp. Active Minerals and Engelhard/BASF are the largest producers. In 2008,BASF acquired the assets of Zemex Attapulgite leaving only 2 gellant grade producers. Active Minerals operates a dedicated factory to produce the patented product Actigel 208 and will begin a new state of the art production process in early 2009 involvig portable plant processing at the mine site.

Properties

Attapulgite clays are swellable clays like bentonite

Bentonite

Bentonite is an absorbent aluminium Silicate minerals, generally impure clay consisting mostly of montmorillonite. There are a few types of bentonites and their names depend on the dominant elements, such as K, Na, Ca, and Al....
, will swell in salt water and is used in special salt water drilling mud for off shore oil drilling. Like many clays, they can be considered as charged particles with zones of + and - charges. Standard attapulgite clays are agglomorated bundles of clay particles between 20 and 100 micrometre

Micrometre

A micrometre or micron is one Micro- of a metre, or equivalently one thousandth of a millimetre. It is also commonly known as a micron....
s long and below 1 micrometre in diameter. Most grades contain up to 25% non-attapulgite material in the form of carbonate

Carbonate

In chemistry, a carbonate is a salt or ester of carbonic acid....
s and other inclusions. Despite this, they are a beneficial ingredient of cementitious tile adhesives in competition with polyacrylates and starch

Starch

File:Amylose2.svgFile:Amylopektin Sessel.svgStarch or amylum is a polysaccharide carbohydrate consisting of a large number of glucose units joined together by glycosidic bonds....
ether

Ether

Ether is a class of organic compounds which contain an ether functional group ? an oxygen atom connected to two alkyl or aryl groups ? of general formula R?O?R....
s. The advantage of attapulgites is that their performance is not temperature sensitive and they have lower water demand. They must have free ions in an aqueous system to work.

Actigel 208 is a patented exfoliated attapulgite where the clay has been chemically and mechanically purified into discrete particles 2 nanometres diameter. This material has special viscosity

Viscosity

Viscosity is a measure of the Drag of a fluid which is being deformed by either shear stress or extensional stress. In everyday terms , viscosity is "thickness"....
modification properties with high solid aqueous systems that cannot be matched with any other ingredients

Medical use

When used in medicine

Medicine

Medicine is the art and science of healing. It encompasses a range of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
, it physically binds to acid

Acid

An acid is traditionally considered any chemical compound that, when dissolved in water, gives a solution with a hydrogen ion Activity greater than in pure water, i.e....
s and toxic substances in the stomach

Stomach

In most mammals, the stomach is a hollow muscular organ of the gastrointestinal tract involved in the second phase of digestion, following mastication....
and digestive tract. For this reason, it has been used in several anti-diarrhea

Diarrhea

In medicine, diarrhea, also spelled diarrhoea , is characterized by frequent loose or liquid bowel movements. The spelling of "diarrhea" is an appropriation of the Greek "diarrhoia" meaning "a flowing through." ....
l medication

Medication

A pharmaceutical drug, also referred to as medicine or medicament, can be loosely defined as any substance intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease....
s, including Diasorb, Donnagel, Kaopectate, and Parepectolin. However, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration

Food and Drug Administration

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is an Government agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and is responsible for regulating and supervising the safety of foods, dietary supplements, Medications, vaccines, Biopharmaceutical, blood transfusion, medical devices, Electromagnetic radiation-emitting devices, veteri...
cut these off from consumers in 2003 when it retroactive

Retroactive

Retroactive means something happening after the fact. It may refer to:* Retroactive legislation or "Ex post facto law"* Retroactive continuity or "Retcon", in fiction...
ly rejected medical studies showing its efficacy

Efficacy

Efficacy is the capacity to produce an effect.It is these conditions that distinguish efficacy from the related concept of effectiveness, which relates to change under real-life conditions....
, calling them insufficient proof

Proof

Proof may refer to:* Formal proof* Mathematical proof* Proof theory, a branch of mathematical logic that represents proofs as formal mathematical objects...
despite its decades of use. Kaopectate's U.S. formula

Formula

In mathematics and in the sciences, a formula is a concise way of expressing information symbolically , or a general relationship between quantities....
was changed to bismuth subsalicylate

Bismuth subsalicylate

Bismuth subsalicylate, with a chemical formula C7H5BiO4, is a drug used to treat nausea, heartburn, indigestion, diarrhea, and other temporary discomforts of the stomach and gastrointestinal tract....
(pink bismuth) shortly thereafter, but it is still available in Canada

Canada

Canada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean....
and elsewhere with attapulgite. Until the early 1990s, Kaopectate used the similar kaolinite

Kaolinite

Kaolinite is a clay mineral with the chemical composition Aluminium2Silicon2Oxygen54. It is a layered Silicate minerals, with one tetrahedron sheet linked through oxygen atoms to one octahedron sheet of alumina octahedra....
(also a clay product) with pectin

Pectin

Pectin is a structural heteropolysaccharide contained in the primary cell walls of terrestrial plants. It was first isolated and described in 1825 by Henri Braconnot....
(hence the name).

Palygorskite

Name

Social use

Extraction

Properties

Medical use

External links