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Urea fertilizer coated with biodegradable polymers and diatomite for slow release and water retention

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Abstract

Slow release fertilizers (SRFs) are of vital importance to improve agricultural efficiency. However, their use is still limited due to their relatively high costs. Additionally, most of coating materials used to produce SRFs are nonbiodegradable and toxic to the soil. In this context, we utilized various biopolymers such as tamarind, xanthan, and guar gums together with diatomite to coat urea fertilizer granules. In this study, tamarind–urea-diatomite (TUD), guar–urea-diatomite (GUD), and xanthan–urea-diatomite (XUD) SRF granules were prepared in the presence of epichlorohydrin as crosslinker. The nutrients slow release behavior and the water retention capacity of these SRFs in soil were determined. The water absorbency of the product was 89% TUD, 93% GUD, and 142% XUD of its own weight when it was allowed to swell in tap water at room temperature for 2 h. Poly(methacrylic acid) was applied as the outermost layer of XUD to improve the nitrogen slow release efficiency of XUD SRFs. The results showed that the product had an excellent nutrients slow release property of 79.5% and good water retention capacity of 62.9% after 28 days. This suggested that XUDM could effectively improve the utilization of fertilizer. Furthermore, being biodegradable and low cost could be beneficial in agricultural and horticultural applications.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Scientific Research Foundation for the Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars (State Education Ministry, 2010-1174), and China Spark Program (Ministry of Science and Technology, 2013GA740073).

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Key Laboratory of Pesticide and Chemical Biology (Ministry of Education), College of Chemistry, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, 430079, People’s Republic of China

      Jean Felix Mukerabigwi, Qing Wang, Xiaoya Ma, Min Liu, Shaojun Lei, Haitao Wei, Xueying Huang & Yu Cao

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    1. Jean Felix Mukerabigwi
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    2. Qing Wang
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    4. Min Liu
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    Correspondence to Yu Cao.

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    Jean Felix Mukerabigwi and Qing Wang contributed equally to the work.

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    Mukerabigwi, J.F., Wang, Q., Ma, X. et al. Urea fertilizer coated with biodegradable polymers and diatomite for slow release and water retention. J Coat Technol Res 12, 1085–1094 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11998-015-9703-2

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