Current Topics in the Utilization of Clay in Industrial and Medical Applications

Book excerpt: Clay and clay minerals have always been used since the ancient times for making ceramic materials and also as a building material. Over the past decades, there has been a growing trend in their applicability in different areas such as industries, environmental remediation and water treatment sectors. The growing trend is mainly associated with the fact that they are chemically and mechanically stable, have higher specific surface area and cation exchange capacity. Furthermore, clays can be modified to improve their functionalities in different sectors. In this chapter, we present a review of the structural, mineralogical and chemical properties of clay and the effect of surface modification in their structures. We further looked at their applicability in arsenic and fluoride removal in their raw and also in their modified form. Although the literature showed that modified clay minerals yields higher adsorption capacity as compared to raw clays little nothing has been reported yet in relation to the cost of modifying clays with chemical species. As such new studies should also elaborate on the cost effectiveness of modifying clay minerals with chemical species.