Active Food & Agriculture Chemistry

"Ferti-Green-Coating" a greener biodegradable polymer for a new generation of Controlled release fertilizer

Funder InnovateUK (part of UKRI)
Recipient organisation Biotica Chemicals LTD.
Funding £347K
Period Mar 2025 — Feb 2027

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

Synthetic fertiliser granules coated with a new biodegradable polymer could cut the greenhouse gases that farming releases into the atmosphere. The problem is that standard fertilisers like urea dissolve too quickly in water: plants absorb only a fraction of the nutrients, while the rest escapes as ammonia and nitrous oxide — potent greenhouse gases — or leaches into groundwater as nitrate. A company called B-Chemltd has developed a coating made from sustainable, soil-friendly materials that slows nutrient release so plants take up more of what they need. In collaboration with Rothamsted Research, the team will test whether this coating can produce cheaper polymer-coated fertilisers that boost nutrient-use efficiency and reduce pollution. If the approach works, it could help meet government targets to cut fertiliser losses and mineral fertiliser use, without sacrificing crop yields. The impact would be felt across the food supply chain and in the wider environment, where fewer emissions and less nitrate contamination would benefit both climate and water quality.

View original technical description
Farming is responsible for 3-5% of GreenHouse Gas emissions (GHG). A high percentage of this results from using inorganic synthetic fertilizers such as Urea, globally a 1.5 gigatons/ year. The challenge with synthetic fertilizers lies in their fast water solubility where only 30-50% of these nutrients (nitrogen, phosphate, potassium) are absorbed by plants, this is a very low efficiency. While the rest of these nutrients are volatilized as ammonia and nitrous oxide (GHG) and leached to underground water (nitrate). The UK Farm to Fork Summit and EU Green Deal aims to reduce the environmental impact of agriculture by decreasing fertilizer losses by 50%, reducing mineral fertilisation use by 20 % by 2030, and improving nutrient use efficiency by 40%. in B-Chemltd, we recognise the need for more efficient and eco-friendly fertilizers that minimize emissions without compromising crop yield. B-Chemltd is motivated to introduce _Ferti-Green-coating_, a new biodegradable and soil-friendly polymer from sustainable resources, to coat synthetic fertilizers to increase efficiency and plant uptake while decreasing GHG emissions. In this project and in collaboration with Rothamsted Research, we will study the feasibility of using our _Ferti-Green-coating_ to produce cheaper polymer-coated fertilisers, with high nutrient-use efficiency to reduce pollution.

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Original classification

Grant for R&D

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