Study of Chemical-physical parameters and optimization of zeolite-type materials for potential biomedical application in intollerance to heavy metals

Up to 20% of the human population and about 65 million people in Europe suffer from food allergies and intolerances, including heavy metals. In particular, nickel allergies are becoming increasingly important. As a consequence, the aim of this project is to exploit the typical ionic exchange characteristic of zeolites, already widely used in food supplements world, to reduce the amount of nickel in human body. In fact, zeolites are characterized by ionic capture, already useful in other application fields. In this work different types of zeolites, natural and not, have been chosen, and their efficiency has been analysed in different test environments.