| dc.description.abstract | With increasing world population, sustaining
food security of people has become a daunting challenge.
Scientists have explored various pathways to feed the
global population. One way is the development of
efficient nutrient and pest control systems together with
improved crop varieties. Most of the conventional
fertilizer systems in practice have not met the plant
nutrient requirements basically due to the low Nitrogen
Use Efficiency (NUE) of plants. There had been many
attempts to develop efficient fertilizer systems
particularly to supply nitrogen, which is the major
nutrient needed for plant growth. Urea, being an
excellent candidate for nitrogen fertilizer, it’s efficient and
targeted delivery is a must. This research focuses on the
synthesis of scalable, cost-effective and efficient nitrogen
fertilizer, which retards the solubility of nitrogen at a
minimum of 5 times compared to pure urea. Being a
bioinspired material, calcium carbonate (CC) renders
added advantages of biocompatibility and non-toxicity.
Urea-CC nanohybrid was synthesized using an in-situ
rapid carbonation method which resulted in cubic platelike nanoparticles which are stacked together to form
pine cone-like structures. The Fourier transform infrared
spectroscopic data provides conclusive evidence for
bonding interactions of urea with CC nanoparticles giving
a platform for controlled release properties of urea.
Crystallographic data of nanohybrids were obtained from
powder X-ray diffraction. Nitrogen release behaviour of
the novel nanohybrids exhibited controlled release
properties over pure urea demonstrating that the urea
modified CC nanocomposites introduced herein have the
potential to replace the conventional fertilizer systems to
sustain future food security. | |
