“…In addition, natural porous materials that can be used as pesticide carriers in controlled-release formulations, such as zeolite (Zhang et al, 2006) and some swelling clay minerals, e.g., montmorillonite (Celis et al, 1999(Celis et al, , 2002Carrizosa et al, 2000;Hermosin et al, 2001Hermosin et al, , 2006Undabeytia et al, 2013) and hydrotalcite (Celis et al, 1999;Bruna et al, 2008), have attracted considerable attention. Natural zeolites and clay minerals have several advantages for use as pesticide carriers: (i) in comparison with synthetic porous materials, these natural minerals are readily available at low cost because of their abundant deposits; (ii) they are environmentally friendly because they are common soil constituents; and (iii) the loading of pesticides on these carriers is readily achieved via simple adsorption and/or ion exchange because they normally possess high ion-exchange capacity.…”