Scent of success in the air - thanks to Stinky Pinkys

hordes of darkness these days. It is, in fact, an aluminosilicate, a

naturally occurring mineral derived from volcanic ash and possessed of

some fascinating properties.

Raphael Haas is no chemist or geologist but he's got the zeolite bug.

He pours some pungent ammonia on his palm, proffers a sniff, then dusts

his hand in zeolite powder and, bingo, the smell has gone. Domestic

odour control is only one of dozens of potential applications for this

substance, ranging from a post-Chernobyl clean-up of radioactive hot

spots around Britain's uplands to improving the rate of fertiliser

release in horticulture.

Mr Haas is one of two Glasgow-based entrepreneurs, backed by a

technical expert from an English polytechnic, who have formed H & H

Minerals to import pure zeolite exclusively into Europe from two mines

in north-west California. The first container-load arrived the other

week and, if all goes according to plan, what Mr Haas calls ''a green

product for the twenty-fifth century'' could start making money for H &

H long before that.

There are some 40 naturally occurring zeolites. Altered volcanic ash,

reshaped chemically in salty, alkaline conditions over a few thousand

geological years. An exceptionally open molecular structure means that a

few grammes of zeolite can absorb a great deal of ammonia, or many other

substances, without swelling or crumbling, like clay. According to H &

H's technical director, Dr Ralph Manly of Kingston Polytechnic, if you

could disappear inside a single gramme you would find as much as 300

square metres of internal surface. Up to 50% of a piece of zeolite is

empty space.

Where aluminium has replaced silicon in the volcanic ash's molecular

structure, the zeolite develops a net negative electrical charge. So, if

you have a positively charged or polar substance whose molecules will

fit inside that zeolite structure, there's an awful lot of space for

them to adhere to. Hungarian farmers have been spreading natural zeolite

on their land for centuries, because it can absorb its own weight in

water and improve the moisture retention of the soil.

But, for most of that time, the mineral was thought to be extremely

rare. When, after the war, a professor at London's Imperial College

began to do more work on the multiple possibilities of zeolite as a

molecular sieve or absorbent, the main commercial thrust was into the

creation of synthetic substitutes.

Today's petrochemical industry uses synthetic zeolites in refineries

and crackers. The most sophisticated synthetics can cost up to #60,000 a

tonne. And even when it was shown through improved exploration

techniques that natural zeolites were far more commonly distributed than

anyone realised, a combination of industrial vested interests and the

fact that natural zeolites are not well suited to some of the things

synthetics do effectively left them lagging in commercial appeal.

And that, despite the fact that natural zeolite need only cost between

#400 and #500 a tonne. ''The trouble,'' says Dr Manly, ''is that, at

first, people tried to make natural zeolites compete head on with the

synthetics.'' Raphael Haas and his partner, Brian Hunt, decided the

sensible way to exploit natural zeolite's commercial potential was to go

for more mundane applications and exploit the substance's green appeal.

''In the short term,'' says Mr Haas, ''we are after the domestic odour

control market. It is non-toxic. It can be put to a wide variety of

uses. We think natural zeolites are potentially a very green product and

that now is the time to promote it.''

So H & H Minerals is beginning by selling 50lb paper sacks of imported

zeolite to stables, kennels, nursing homes, hospitals and other places

as a quick, non-toxic means of controlling unpleasant ammonia and

hydrogen sulphide odours. The fledgling company is talking to West

Midlands Fire Brigade, in whose area there are 40,000 movements of

hazardous substances on the roads every day, about zeolite as a means of

mopping up toxic spills.

Mr Haas, whose track record is in textile manufacturing and the

licensed trade -- he created the Videodrome in Glasgow's Broomielaw

before selling out to property developers Glasgow and Oriental -- says

he first became aware of zeolite in an odour-control product, marketed

in the United States. He pulls out a pack of Stinky Pinkys from a shelf

-- zeolite grains in a sachet which can be slipped inside a pair of

athletic shoes to remove stale odours.

Having seen the product, he then chanced upon one of Dr Manly's

articles about the overlooked opportunities in natural zeolite, in a

March, 1989 issue of New Scientist. Mr Haas and his partner, Brian Hunt,

discussed the possibilities, phoned Dr Manly, and went to London to see

him.

From there they flew to California, where the purest reserves of

naturally occurring zeolite are to be found, and trekked round the

mines. ''Initially we were quite disappointed,'' he recalls. ''We

expected the Americans to be much further forward with their product

development than they were.''

A few years before, British Nuclear Fuels had bought supplies from the

Californian mines to filter radioactive caesium and strontium from the

effluent waters at Sellafield. Currently, under a Ministry of

Agriculture-sponsored research programme, a form of natural zeolite is

being used in an attempt to capture post-Chernobyl caesium-137 over

contaminated upland areas of Wales.

But the Americans, according to Mr Haas and Dr Manly, were not

targeting their markets well. They don't intend making the same mistake.

Apart from controlling odours in the home and stable, or dealing with

chemical spills, zeolite can be used to strip heavy metals out of slurry

or sewage sludge. And it appears to have a number of horticultural and

agricultural advantages.

The inert material could be loaded with plant nutrients or essential

trace elements and create a slow-release vehicle for the fertiliser.

That would minimise the risk of scorching the plants or seeing much of

the chemical, as in the case of nitrates, simply washed away to cause

environmental damage by building up elsewhere.

In some countries zeolites have been shown to be beneficial as

additives in animal feed, binding the naturally occurring ammonia in

ruminants and reducing the risk of diarrhoea and other intestinal

conditions. Other applications suggest themselves in fish farming. Dr

Manly even suggests that those organic farmers prepared to use rock

phosphates as fertilisers might use a mix with zeolite, where there are

early experimental signs that the combination improves the phosphate

release rate.

Zeolite can be used instead of sand as the base for putting greens on

new golf courses, reducing the need to water as frequently and

preventing the churning up which can happen to conventional greens after

a downpour.

''I'm now terribly committed to zeolite,'' says Mr Haas, who still

does some consultancy work in the licensed trade. ''When you think about

the possibilities long enough they all start flying round your head.''

There is very little natural zeolite to be found on the British Isles.

But, eventually, H & H Minerals plans to add substantial value here to

the raw mineral exclusively imported from California. ''We can do

crushing, grinding, bagging, sacheting here,'' says Mr Haas. ''We can

put it into domestic sprinkler cans and the like. That way we can create

jobs.''

For the moment, H & H Minerals' base is a rather scruffy office in

Glasgow's Park Circus area, where the previous occupant's belongings

still lie around in black bin-liners, mingling with the paper sacks of

various forms of zeolite. Strathclyde Innovation has agreed to help fund

further research and development work on zeolite's potential

applications.

Why did Messrs Haas and Hunt get their head start? A lot of people,

apparently, responded to that Dr Manly article in New Scientist.

''Basically we got off our backsides quickly and did something about

it,'' says Mr Haas. If zeolite is as good as they claim it is, that

quick response time will pay handsome dividends in the years ahead.