Development and Characterization Of Smart Urea Ionic Co-crystals Fertilizer For Controlled Nitrogen Release

Abstract

The world's population is increasing rapidly day by day, leading in global food scarcity. Industrial growth, urbanization, and deforestation, on the other side, will enhance food shortages in most countries. As a result, in the coming decades, considerable rise in mineral fertilizer is expected. The use of normal industrial urea fertilizer has a number of drawbacks, including a number of environmental concerns such as water eutrophication and toxicity, as well as groundwater contamination, environmental pollution, soil quality destruction, and ecosystem disruption. Fertilizer is vital for boosting soil fertility, enhancing yields, and promoting the quality of the harvest. But unfortunately, a considerable amount of fertilizer is lost, raising agricultural expenses, wasting energy, and contaminating the atmosphere, all of which are major obstacles to modern agriculture's sustainability. For increased crop yield and rapid economic advancement, a consistent, cost-effective, and long-term supply of nitrogen (N) and other plant nutrients is necessary, while maintaining growing population and a good quality of living. We demonstrate the application of mechanochemistry to obtain control release urea fertiliser in a manner which fulfills the needs of crops as per their growth demands. We conduct urea ionic cocrystal synthesis, incorporating potassium chloride, zinc chloride along with urea nitrate and urea phosphate via stoichiometric reactions in high yields. The resultant materials exhibit distinctive features acquired from the respective inorganic reactants, leading in urea stability with respect to deliquescence in moist conditions by substantially slowing urea hydrolysis in soil, minimizing ammonia emanations & encompassing N accessibility as per crops need. All the combinations were applied to UV VIS Spectroscopy analysis to check the release of Urea-N from urea ionic c-crystals in comparison with uncoated urea. All urea ionic co-crystals showed the best results for Urea-N release in terms of control release characteristics. Spectroscopy and Crushing strength analysis results revealed that the addition of compacting materials with urea retarded the release rate in water more as compared to uncompacted urea. UIC-2 treatment materials crushing strength iv was reported as 214.71 N, followed by UIC-3 with 198.36 N. SEM micrograph of UIC-3 showed compacted structure among all combinations. After the preparation of urea ionic co-crystals pot test experiment conducted using a completely randomized block design with six repetitions on a spinach plant. All soil sampling was done at 0 days and after harvesting of spinach twice (35 days and 65 days). Plant analysis was conducted after the harvesting of spinach plants. There is no noticeable increase in soil pH. Soil EC enhances after UIC’s fertilizer used. Maximum EC was observed in UIC-1 (0.81 dS/m) and the minimum was observed in UIC-2 (0.67 dS/m). TOC value is highest in UIC-3 (8.91 Mg/hac) and less value was shown by UC (7..34 Mg/hac). OM content is highest in UIC-3 (0.77%) and less value was shown by UC (0.63%). Results show that MBC and MBN from UIC-3 treatment are maximum of 175 mg/kg and 93.38 mg/kg respectively, followed by UIC-2 treatment of 147.98 mg/kg and 85.61 mg/kg respectively. MBP and MBK results revealed that treatment UIC-3 shows maximum contents of 23.96 mg/kg and 63.33 mg/kg respectively, followed by UIC-2 treatment of 19 mg/kg and 57.75 mg/kg respectively. In mineral nitrogen UIC-3 and UC treatment represent highest and lowest value of both NitrateN and Ammonium-N respectively in both soil and leachate. Observing the plant analysis, it is observed that in UIC treatment has maximum plant height (23.15 cm and 13.26 cm), plant diameter (2.68 mm and 1.60 mm), leaf area (34601 cm/m2 and 20623 cm/m2), and leaf area index (3.46 m/m2 and 2.06 m/m2) was recorded after both harvestings respectively. Moreover, UIC-3 treatment gave the best result in terms of spinach fresh mass, dry mass yield and nitrogen uptake after both harvestings. From all release rates of fertilizer in water and pot test experiment on plant concluded that UIC-3 fertilizer gives the best result followed by UIC-2 fertilizer.