The use of zeolite as a substrate leads to the production of high quality vegetables and high yields, with lower disease involvements. Photo: Courtesy of the interviewee It was 1970 when Cuban and Bulgarian geologists discovered in Tasajeras, present-day Villa Clara province, the first natural zeolite site located in our archipelago.
A short time later, five scientific institutions began working on the characterization of the physical and chemical properties of the mineral, with the purpose of evaluating its possible applications.
They were the Institute of Animal Science, the Center for Geological Research, the National Center for Scientific Research, the Research and Project Center for the Mining-Metallurgical Industry and the Center for Chemical Research.
The results highlighted the advantages of using natural zeolites in improving soil quality, animal feed, fertilizer formulation, portland cement additive, waste treatment and substrate form for the cultivation of ornamental, fruit and plant plants.
As far as 1987 Nerea substrates are introduced into stonemasons surrounding children's circles (so-called zeoponics) in order to increase the supply of vegetables in children's diets.
A year later the country's top management oriented the creating of the extractive and processing oil industry, and boosting the possible uses of this in agriculture, construction, medicine and other areas, leading to the emergence of the Natural Zeolite Development Program in Cuba.
Around this time, more than 30 multidisciplinary groups were created to develop new technologies and products from what began to be publicly called "the ore of the century", while the productive capacity installed in the four exploitative deposits (Jaruco,
Tasajeras, Najasa and San Andrs) reached 600,000 tonnes per year in the early 1990s of the previous century.
However, as the nation entered the special period, extraction levels decreased considerably, which together with the low quality of the mineral collected, slowed the progress of many projects showing fully proven contributions.
As The PhD in Physical Sciences Gerardo Rodrguez Fuentes, senior researcher at the Institute of Materials Science and Technology (IMRE), of the University of Havana, and one of the Cuban specialists with the greatest experience in studies on natural zeolites, most regrettable reasoned in the non-use of a group of scientific results that fell into the most absurd oblivion.
He mentioned the example of Enterex antidiarrheal tablets, the first natural zeolite-based drug registered in Cuba and the world in 1995, the development of which was carried out by IMRE in close collaboration with the Institute of Pharmacy and Food of the house of high studies itself, and the Institute of Gastroenterology of the Ministry of Public Health.
Despite its proven beneficial effects on the control of diarrhoea and the symptoms that accompany it, without hardly causing adverse reactions, the drug ceased to be manufactured around 1999 and never explained the reasons that led to its disappearance, Dr. Rodrguez Fuentes said.
He also cited the case of mixed zeolithic fertilizers capable of increasing the yields of maize, beans, tomato, sugar cane, potato and aromatic plants, and which today occur in very low quantities in the country. However, manufacturing technology was transferred to Mexico, where several research institutes endorsed the effectiveness of fertilizers made through this proceeding. A LOT TO RESCUE
In the opinion of the IMRE researcher, the main disadvantage of natural zeolites lies in the difficulty in obtaining large volumes of the mineral that maintain homogeneous physical and chemical properties.
This led him to work for more than 30 years in the so-called engineering of natural zeolites, a subject that earned him to successfully defend his second doctorate last July.
According to Granma Professor Gerardo Rodrguez, the novelty of the thesis was to create a group of procedures using minerals
zeolithic as a basic raw material, by which these can be enriched, modified and transformed, resulting in the obtaining of a new material with different properties and suitable for the particular purpose to be given.
This made it possible to obtain a range of novel high value-added lines including toxic metal eliminators in industrial wastewater, animal feed additives, medicines and broad-spectrum microbicides.
As stated by the specialist, the engineering of natural zeolites favors the development of the ore industry from a different perspective, as it bases its growth based on the values incorporated into the products, and not the total volumes to be manufactured.
Such a premise, he said, will gradually evolve it towards well-high levels of competitiveness in correspondence with an increasingly demanding market, which requires establishing rigorous quality parameters not seen before in the natural zeolite industry in the country.
It is worth noting that IMRE's zeolite engineering laboratory not only designs and obtains new improved zeolithic materials, but manufactures, controls quality, creates the market, markets them and transfers technology for domestic production and other nations, closing the research-development and innovation cycle.
This work has been supported by the UH Bureau of Research Results Transfers, which is responsible for taking on the processing of contracts with Cuban and foreign companies.
In addition to the Institute of Materials Science and Technology, other entities currently maintain different research lines linked to the topic of zeolites, such as the Institute of Animal Science, the Technical Center for the Development of Building Materials, the Institute of
Plant Biotechnology, Marta Abreu Central University, Villa Clara, and the Research and Project Center for the Mining-Metallurgical Industry.
There is then a potential for knowledge and results that needs to be rescued and put at the service of the progress of the national economy. Achieving effective communication between the business sector and universities can go a long way in that endeavor.