Enhancing Nutrient Use Efficiency Using Zeolites Minerals—A Review

On tropical soils, liming and balanced nutrient supply are essential to ensure high crop yield and quality. An adequate agronomic nutrient management should be a balanced nutrition and fertilizers are the key factor on supplying nutrients. Urea is the most commonly used fertilizer-N source, despite potential losses by NH3 volatilization. Thus, new fertilizers technologies are needed to support the increasing demand and avoid the low N use efficiency (NUE). The reduction of NH3-N volatilization can be achieved by the use of natural aluminosilicates with nitrogenous fertilizer materials. This review consolidates the current status on the subject and the experience with the application of aluminosilicates as a slow release plant-nutrient fertilizer. Volatilization losses of nitrogenous fertilizers on the soil surface could be reduced with addition of natural aluminosilicates. Clay minerals (zeolites) are widely used in many countries to reduce NH3 volatilization from amide N fertilizers, such as urea, besides several organic forms of nitrogenous sources. The reduction in ammonia losses by volatilization and the increased efficiency of N utilization and slow release nature of urea-zeolite mixtures when urea is used together with aluminosilicates was demonstrated in laboratory, greenhouse and field experiments with different crops and environments. These results indicate that aluminosilicates minerals used with urea mineral fertilizer can enhance the efficiency of this source by improving the nitrogen use through the control of retention of ammonium ion, contributing to increasd N uptake and crop yields.