Synthesis and characterization of Gum tragacanth, acrylic acid–methacrylic acid based interpenetrating polymer network: its application for controlled release of agrochemicals

ABSTRACTThe present work deals with the synthesis of environment friendly Gum tragacanth, acrylic acid and methacrylic acid based interpenetrating polymer network (IPN) using potassium persulfate-ascorbic acid as an initiator and glutaraldehyde as cross-linker. The structure and morphology of the synthesized IPN was confirmed with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). SEM of synthesizeation of IPN showed morphological variations from the backbone due to grafting of poly(acrylic acid) chains and interpenetrating of poly(methacrylic acid) chain onto Gum tragacanth. The nature of synthesized IPN was determined through X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies. Synthesized IPN was used for the controlled release of potassium chloride, potassium nitrate and urea in the soil. The results showed that synthesized IPN released 1096.45 ppm potassium chloride, 757.11 ppm potassium nitrate and 816.86 ppm urea after 40 hours; this showed slow release of fertilizer for prolonged time, wh...