Multiple release of fertilizers and pesticides from biodegradable bicontinuous structures

In this work, the loading and release of urea and atrazine through a bijel-based structure has been studied. The main advantages of these systems reside in the easy production process, being the components simply mixed at room temperature without surfactant molecules. In addition the possibility to load hydrophilic and hydrophobic molecules during materials production can reduce the costs and maximize the loading capacity. The final bijel obtained presents high stability in water for more than 30 days in soil. The internal morphology of the device obtained was investigated using nano-computed tomography showing homogeneous distribution of the pores, with an average pore diameter of 40 mu m. These systems were then tested in different media. As expected, the release was much quicker in water (urea for 3 days, atrazine for 5 days), and slower when moving to solid media. In celite urea was released for more than a week and atrazine for more than 15 days while in soil both urea and atrazine for more than 20 days. Also plants treated with bijels showed promising results: for shoots 15 cm vs 12 cm of the control group and for roots 3.5 cm vs 1.5 cm of the control group.