Agricultural fertilizers are critical for feeding the world’s population, restoring soil fertility and sustaining crops.
Agricultural fertilizers are critical for feeding the world’s population, restoring soil fertility and sustaining crops. Excessive and inefficient use of those resources can present an environmental threat, contaminating waterways and generating greenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Agricultural Science & Technology have addressed those challenges with glass fertilizer beads. The beads control nutrient release, and the researchers say they’re environmentally compatible.
The results show that glass fertilizers can be tailored to plant needs, slowly and sustainably releasing nutrients to boost productivity without harming soil quality,” says Danilo Manzani, a co-author of the study.
Over time, the use of agricultural chemicals has increased. In 2020, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimated that global demand for fertilizers would surpass 200 million metric tonnes. Fertilizers contain nitrogen, phosphorus and lower amounts of other elements like calcium. Unfortunately, the benefits of these nutrients are lost through leaching into groundwater and emissions into the air, necessitating frequent reapplication and creating downstream environmental problems like toxic algal blooms. A potential solution could come from tiny glass beads that previous researchers used to improve plant growth. To improve the efficiency of nutrient delivery, Manzani, Eduardo Ferreira and colleagues developed a water-soluble, multicomponent glass fertilizer designed for controlled nutrient release.
Read more at American Chemical Society
Image: Researchers turned to glass beads to produce an environmentally compatible, sustained-release fertilizer. (Credit: Adapted from ACS Agricultural Science & Technology, 2025, DOI: 10.1021/acsagscitech.4c00243)
