from the conferences organized by TANGER Ltd.
Our research is focused on foliar fertilizers and their impacts on plant grow. These experiments are realized in agarose hydrogels (blank agarose hydrogels and agarose hydrogel with addition of potassium lignohumate). Used materials (hydrogels and isolated plant cuticles) were characterized by basic physical chemical instrumentations (rheology, scanning electron microscopy, mercury intrusion porosimetry and stereomicroscopy). Mentioned methods are able to characterize behavior of hydrogels. Rheology enables to determine the mechanical properties of hydrogels. Hydrogel materials must be modified for some trials; otherwise it wouldn’t possible to measure it. Lyophilisation was used for modification of hydrogel, because dry hydrogels (xerogels) are more appropriate for aforementioned instruments. Scanning electron microscopy and stereomicroscopy were used to determine the surface of hydrogels. Mercury intrusion porosimetry was used for determination of hydrogels pores for both types. It was considered, from obtained experimental data, that this material doesn’t significantly affect the diffusion processes.
Keywords: Hydrogels; agarose; potassium lignohumate; lyophilisation© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.