Dealing with binary values in Mysql DB

Hi,

I store IP's in binary format;

PHP Code:

$ip = inet_pton($_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']); //binary value 


and in DB query I do this way:

PHP Code:

$sql = "SELECT MAX(attempted_at) as last_failed_attempt
    FROM failed_login
    WHERE attempted_at > DATE_SUB('$now', INTERVAL $delay_minutes MINUTE)
    AND ip_address = " . $this->db->escape($ip); 


My issue is for eacmaple when I echo binary $ip  it contained this value •Œ'þ   it contains single quotation mark. 
and after running this $this->db->escape($ip) this outputs '•Œ\'þ' so is the binary field changed when I run this $this->db->escape() function. 
am I doing query right way? Or is there other way to do queries for for binary values?