A university student develops new fertilizers

For almost a year, Anna Nelyubina, a 4th year student in the Chemical Technology Department of the Institute of Chemistry and Ecology of Vyatka State University (Vyatka State University), has been working on the project “Production of a new type of long-acting fertilizer” led by Roman Vesnin, Head of the Department of Chemistry and Polymer Processing Technology and Associate Professor Andrey Burkova.

The goal of the young researcher is to obtain encapsulated fertilizer coated with a biopolymer that is superior to modern products in terms of efficiency and allows to reduce the cost of production, storage, transportation and direct use.

According to Anna Nelyubina, she set out to solve the current problem of leaching mineral fertilizers from fields into ground and underground water bodies. This causes dangerous accumulation of fertilizer components in members of biocenosis, for example, micro-organisms, plants, soil-living animals, and all the way down to humans.

In addition, the use of most well-known fertilizers does not guarantee uniform nutrient distribution in plants, and consequently agricultural producers are forced to apply the fertilizers repeatedly, which makes the process time-consuming and not effective enough.

“I am offer slow-release fertilizers that significantly reduce costs at all stages: from production to application. Conventional fertilizers, when dissolved, increase the concentration of nutrients, which decreases over time. This requires the fertilizer to be applied to the soil up to four times per season. A slow-release fertilizer is applied once, and then it works the whole period, releasing nutrients through the membrane,” Anna Nelyubina explained.