Earth & SkyGreek → English
Zeolite
/ˈziːəlaɪt/noun
Any of a family of porous aluminosilicate minerals whose cage-like structure traps water and ions, used as molecular sieves, catalysts and water softeners.
The Greek roots
ζέω
zéō
to boil, seethe
λίθος
líthos
stone
Literally: “boiling stone”
The story of the word
The Swedish mineralogist Axel Cronstedt named the group in 1756 after watching a specimen froth and hiss in the blowpipe flame. What he saw was water boiling out of channels inside the crystal, which is exactly the property that made zeolites industrially valuable two centuries later. Petrol refining now runs on synthetic versions of his boiling stone.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 18th century
Same family
lithographymegalithmonolitheutectic
In a sentence
The filter is packed with zeolite to strip ammonia out of the tank water.