Rafique Muhammad Imran, Al-Wabel Mohammad I, Al-Farraj Abdullah S F, Ahmad Munir, Aouak Taieb, Al-Swadi Hamed Ahmed, Mousa Mohammed Awad
Soil Sciences Department, College of Food & Agricultural Sciences, King Saud University, P.O. Box 2460, 11451, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Department of Chemistry, College of Science, King Saud University, 11451, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Sci Rep. 2025 Mar 20;15(1):9563. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-90367-8.
Chemical fertilizers (CFs) are indispensable nutrients source for plants replenishing them with essential nutrients. However, their over-utilization imposed destructive consequences of excessive loss of major nutrients resulting in low nutrient use efficiency and further environmental concerns. Therefore, to counter excessive application of CFs and to regulate sustainable agriculture, a novel biochar (BC)-based slow-release fertilizer (SRF) was developed by incorporating mica (MI) and semi-interpenetrating chitosan polymer (Semi-IPN) via graft co-polymerization. Fabricated SRFs were characterized and their nutrient release dynamics as well as soil water holding (WH) and water retention (WR) capacity were investigated. The results revealed that BC-based SRFs, particularly BC-SRF and BCMI-SRF, enhanced soil WH capacity by 40.61% and 47.80%, respectively, whereas the highest soil WR capacity was recorded as 32.55% and 35.52% respectively, after 30 days. The nutrients (NH-N, P, K) release ratio of CF and MI was recorded in the range of 85-100%, however BC and MI incorporated SRFs showed splendid slow release nutrients dynamics and release 75.53% of NH-N, 65.66% of P and 71.83% of K in a 30 days incubation experiment. Nutrient release kinetics exhibited diffusion and mass transport as the major nutrient release mechanisms, which was confirmed by the best fitted parabolic diffusion and first order kinetics models. Hence, current study inclusively demonstrated new routes for synthesis of innovative and eco-friendly SRFs with substantial slow-release performance to overcome excessive nutrient loss by application of CF.
化肥是植物不可或缺的养分来源，为植物补充必需的养分。然而，化肥的过度使用造成了主要养分过度流失的破坏性后果，导致养分利用效率低下，并引发了进一步的环境问题。因此，为了应对化肥的过量施用并规范可持续农业，通过接枝共聚将云母（MI）和半互穿壳聚糖聚合物（Semi-IPN）结合，开发了一种新型的基于生物炭（BC）的缓释肥料（SRF）。对制备的缓释肥料进行了表征，并研究了它们的养分释放动力学以及土壤持水（WH）和保水（WR）能力。结果表明，基于生物炭的缓释肥料，特别是BC-SRF和BCMI-SRF，分别使土壤持水能力提高了40.61%和47.80%，而在30天后，最高的土壤保水能力分别记录为32.55%和35.52%。化肥和云母的养分（NH-N、P、K）释放率在85-100%的范围内，然而，加入生物炭和云母的缓释肥料显示出出色的养分缓释动力学，在30天的培养实验中释放了75.53%的NH-N、65.66%的P和71.83%的K。养分释放动力学表现出扩散和质量传输是主要的养分释放机制，这通过最佳拟合的抛物线扩散和一级动力学模型得到了证实。因此，当前的研究全面展示了合成具有显著缓释性能的创新型和环保型缓释肥料的新途径，以克服因施用化肥而导致的养分过度流失。
