Sustainable agro-waste pellets as granular slow-release fertilizer carrier systems for ammonium sulfate
Date
2024
Authors
Steiger, Bernd
Bui, Nam
Babalola, Bolanle
Wilson, Lee
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Royal Society of Chemistry
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Article
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Abstract
In this study, several granular biocomposite carrier systems were prepared that contain biomaterials (chitosan, torrefied wheat straw and avian eggshells) as additive components at variable composition. The biocomposites were loaded with ammonium sulfate (AS) by two methods: (1) in situ addition of AS during pellet preparation, and (2) an adsorption method of AS after pellet preparation. Characterisation was carried out via spectroscopy (XRD, FT-IR) and complementary methods (TGA, acid stability). The pellet system (C1) by method (1) contained ca. 22 mg per g NH4+, whereas pellet systems by method (2) contained up to ca. 40 mg per g NH4+. The mol-ratio of NH4+ : SO42− varied from 2.18 (C1) to 2.72 (CW72), 2.97 (CW20), 2.64 (CW21) and 3.20 (CW22). Release studies in water showed that C1 pellets released almost 100% NH4+ within 3 h, while release varied from ca. 60% (CW72), ca. 40% (C20), 20% (C21) to 10% (CW22). By comparison, the systems prepared through method (2) showed a marginal increase of the release profiles up to 96 h. Granular AS carrier systems prepared by method (2) displayed greater mechanical stability and AS content versus the systems prepared by method (1). We demonstrated the ability to tailor the physico-chemical properties of such biocomposite carriers and highlight their promising potential as slow-release fertilizer systems.
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This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence.
Keywords
biocomposite carrier system, chitosan, pellet preparation, fertilizer systems
Citation
Steiger, K., Bui, N. T., Babalola, B. M., & Wilson, L. D. (2024). Sustainable agro-waste pellets as granular slow-release fertilizer carrier systems for ammonium sulfate. RSC Sustainability, 2(10), 2979–2988. https://doi.org/10.1039/d4su00141a
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DOI
10.1039/D4SU00141A