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Synthesis and characterization of agarose-bacterial cellulose hydrogel for promoting seed germination by improving soil water retention

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Abstract

The shortage of water resources is a crisis for human ecosystems. Compared with other ecosystems, the impact on agricultural ecosystems is more prominent. In order to alleviate this situation, a new type of agricultural hydrogel, agarose-bacterial cellulose hydrogel, was synthesized by replacing the traditional petroleum-based monomer with natural polysaccharide. Bacterial cellulose was used as raw material for the synthesis of hydrogels using agarose as matrix template and N, N’- methylenebisacrylamide as cross-linkers. In the present study, the hydrogel has optimized the ratio of the three synthesized polymers and characterized this hydrogel using FTIR spectra, XRD, and SEM. The findings demonstrated that bacterial cellulose was adequately incorporated into the agarose hydrogel and that the pores of AB1 were more significant than those of AA and AB2, which provided crucial support for the hydrogel’s ability to encourage plant development. By mixing hydrogel with soil, the effects of soil which have composite hydrogel and without composite hydrogel on plant germination and growth were studied. The results showed that adding bacterial cellulose increased the water retention and holding capacity of agarose hydrogel. Moreover, the plant germination rate and growing trend in soil with hydrogel were better than those without hydrogel. This low-cost, quickly made hydrogel has great application potential in agricultural soil.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of **njiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China [Grant No. 2022D01B20], The Key Research and Development Program of the **njiang Uygur Autonomous Region [Grant No. 2022B02003].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Resources and Environment, **njiang Agricultural University, Urumqi, 830052, China

    **n Tang, Zhenhao Zhang & Hao Shi

  2. College of Electronic and Engineering, YiLi Normal University, Yining, 835000, China

    Ya Wang

  3. College of Mathematics and Physics, **njiang Agricultural University, Urumqi, 830052, China

    Fangyuan Yang

  4. College of Grassland and Environmental Sciences, **njiang Agricultural University, Urumqi, 830000, **njiang, China

    An Yan & Kaiyun **e

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  1. **n Tang
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  5. An Yan
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  6. Fangyuan Yang
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Contributions

XT contributed to data curation, writing—original draft preparation. ZZ contributed to methodology, validation. HS contributed to conceptualization, methodology. YW contributed to data curation, investigation. AY contributed to supervision, investigation. FY contributed to formal analysis, investigation. KX contributed to edit grammar and words of the paper.

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Correspondence to Fangyuan Yang.

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Tang, X., Zhang, Z., Shi, H. et al. Synthesis and characterization of agarose-bacterial cellulose hydrogel for promoting seed germination by improving soil water retention. Polym. Bull. 81, 8215–8227 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00289-023-05102-y

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