Chlorides

Nanoshel’s Lanthanum chloride Powder is the inorganic compound. It is a common salt. It is a white solid that is highly soluble in water and alcohols. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal that oxidizes easily in air. Lanthanum is the first element in the rare earth or lanthanide series. It is the model for all the other trivalent rare earths and it is the second most abundant of the rare earths after cerium.

Nanoshel’s Lanthanum chloride Powder is used in human medicine to bind phosphate. In patients with kidney malfunction, whose blood has to be purified via dialysis (“blood-washing”), lanthanum is used to treat any excess of phosphate in the blood (hyperphosphataemia): Lanthanum chloride is introduced into the stomach in the form of tablets, in order to bind phosphate from food before the body can take it up into the blood via the intestine. The phosphate to enter the blood then it would have to be removed sophisticated haemodialysis.

The phosphate binding capacity of lanthanum matches that of aluminum, but without the toxicity that arises from long-term use. For this reason lanthanum chloride has for some time been used by the swimming-pool industry in order to prevent a build-up of phosphate in the water. A swimming pool, fitted with a sand filter, receives a daily, volume-dependent amount of the liquid preparation, which on contact with phosphate-laden water immediately forms tiny flocs (flakes of lanthanum phosphate – LaPO4 – precipitate), which are then trapped in the sand filter.

Nanoshel’s Lanthanum chloride Powder in liquid form for phosphate control in the coral-reef aquarium as soon as effective methods of removing the LaPO4 flocs from the water are developed. Using suitable filter equipment, it appears to be perfectly feasible to prevent the occurrence of deposits in the aquarium; hence – as far as I know at present – the method can be used without risk as long as the phosphate concentration is not excessively high and the treatment takes place at a sufficiently slow rate. However, the permanent lowering of the concentration requires long-term treatment with regular applications, as mentioned earlier, it must not be forgotten that the effectiveness of this method diminishes once the phosphate concentration in the aquarium water has been significantly reduced.

The application of Nanoshel’s Lanthanum chloride Powder directly to the aquarium and then filtering out the precipitate with a sand or diatomaceous filter, accompanied by very strong circulation of the water to prevent the flocs from settling out. In my view it is a far better idea to apply the lanthanum in a sump or filter chamber and then remove the product of the reaction via a protein skimmer plus subsequent fine filtration before returning the water to the aquarium.