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Correlation Between Gel Strength of Starch-Based Hydrogel and Slow Release Behavior of Its Embedded Urea

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Abstract

Starch-based hydrogels have attracted increasingly attention for application in controlled release fertilizers. However, there is currently a lack of knowledge on ways to characterize this system. In this work, we employed a hot-compression vulcanizer to in-situ synthesize monolithic urea-embedded grafted starch hydrogels with a slab geometry, which facilitates the subsequent measurement of gel strength and urea release kinetics. The results revealed that the greater the gel strength induced by a decreased urea load, an increased graft content, and an increased cross-linking density of starch-based hydrogels, the less the initial burst release of embedded urea. The unavoidable burst release could be ascribed to the heterogeneous network structure of starch-based hydrogels. The network of the hydrogels also afforded an zero-order, or at least time-independent, release kinetics of urea at intermediate stable stage, regardless of their microstructural parameters. Our results could provide a guideline to the design of hydrogel-based fertilizer delivery systems.

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Acknowledgements

This work has been financially supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (Project No. 2018YFD0400700), the NSFC (Project No. 31571789), and the 111 Project (Project No. B17018).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Polymers from Renewable Resources, SFSE, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510640, China

    Xiaoqi Wei, Xianyang Bao, Long Yu, Hongsheng Liu, Kai Lu & Ling Chen

  2. Sino-Singapore International Joint Research Institute, Knowledge City, Guangzhou, 510663, China

    Long Yu & Hongsheng Liu

  3. Hunan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Changsha, 410125, China

    Lianyang Bai, Xiaomao Zhou, Zhuren Li & Wanming Li

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  1. Xiaoqi Wei
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  2. Xianyang Bao
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  3. Long Yu
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  4. Hongsheng Liu
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  5. Kai Lu
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  6. Ling Chen
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Correspondence to Long Yu or Hongsheng Liu.

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Wei, X., Bao, X., Yu, L. et al. Correlation Between Gel Strength of Starch-Based Hydrogel and Slow Release Behavior of Its Embedded Urea. J Polym Environ 28, 863–870 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10924-020-01653-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10924-020-01653-7

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