Eco-Friendly Urea Nanosack: Jute Grafted Silica Nanoring Woven Fertilizer to Control Urea Release and Enhance Crop Productivity

A sustainable fertilizer coating using silica for urea release control has been developed using egg white as the binder, which forms an irreversible hydrophobic β-sheet on gentle heating and substitutes earlier petrochemical coatings. When the silica content is increased for diffusion control, the membrane becomes brittle; hence, for the first time here, jute grafted silica nanoring has been used, where the nanojute acts as a strong buckle for the egg white β-sheet fastener and serve as the sack for holding urea. Silica and egg white are inert, while the jute acts as an auto rate-cutter for spill-way pores in silica, which allows a threshold amount of nutrients to pass on initial wetting and then controls nutrient loss by swelling. Thus, both forms of loss, viz. volatility and liquid with humidity and flooding, respectively, get controlled. This eco-friendly noncovalent stable scalable urea coating shows 15% more efficiency in rice production.