Itaconic acid–urea–acrylic acid copolymer as a novel water and nutrient retaining fertilizer

To meet the demands of a growing population, the global food production will have to increase by at least 70% by 2050. Developing high-performance water and nutrient retaining fertilizer (WNRF) to increase crop yield in arid and semi-arid areas is an effective measure to maintain the balance of ecological environment and the sustainable development of human being. In this study, itaconic acid, as one of the 12 most promising bio-based platform compounds, was combined with urea and acrylic acid in methanol to form the oligomer, which could quickly cross-link to obtain a new type of WNRF with the rapid evaporation of methanol. According to the performance of water and fertilizer retention, the optimal WNRF showed water retention ratio of 47.1%, migrate-to-surface loss control ratio of 85.6%, and leaching loss control ratio of 66.6%, respectively. It retained in the soil via the filtering effect, resulting in lower loss of water and nutrient. As illustrated by two individual pot experiments, the optimal WNRF effectively facilitated the growth of plant rape and maize, in which the dry matter weight of shoot was increased by 28% and 88% compared to the control group. This work provides a promising approach to enhance the utilization efficiency of water and nutrient, which is expected to have potential applications in sustainable modern agriculture of drought regions.