APPLICATIONS OF GEOLOGICAL/MINERALOGICAL CONCEPTS IN THE PHARMACEUTICAL, CHEMICAL AND MATERIALS INDUSTRIES

Geological/mineralogical concepts are applicable to a wide range of industries outside of what are normally considered career options for geologists. These industries include the broad areas of chemicals, materials and pharmaceuticals. Since the majority of solid substances are crystalline, all of these industries relay heavily on solid-state chemistry/physical characterization of the minerals and materials they employ. This necessitates characterization of the crystalline phases, evaluation of polymorphism along with phase relationships in extended systems, drawing heavily upon concepts taught in mineralogy, crystallography, petrology and petrography. Additionally, analytical techniques typically found in mineralogical laboratories are utilized. These include polarized light microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, x-ray powder diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy.

The areas of crystallography/solid-state chemistry have become extremely important in the pharmaceutical industry. More than 40 minerals are used in the industry for various purposes including active pharmaceutical ingredients (API’s), excipients (non-active ingredients), and pigments along with fillers in packaging materials. Additionally, the majority of organic API's are crystalline materials which necessitates full characterization of these materials along with an understanding of their phase relationships in order to ensure chemical purity, stability and control of bioavailability. Furthermore, petrographic thin-section techniques are utilized to monitor phase stability of API's within formulated drug tablets and these rely on concepts and analytical techniques commonly used in mineralogy.

This paper will present examples of how geological/mineralgological concepts are applied to the chemical, materials and pharmaceutical industries and will illustrate how students can utilze the concepts they have learned to nontraditional areas and, thus, expand possible career opportunities.