Improving Water Retention in Soil

Abstract

Limited water resources in many countries of the world, especially those suffering from arid climate, an increase of local population, and encroachment of refugees, such as in Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt are threatened with water scarcity. Since agriculture consumes about 82.5% of total water consumption in Egypt. Besides, the Egyptian deserts, which represent about 96% of the total area of Egypt, are mostly sandy soils, which do not retain water and a large part of it seeps down into the deep aquifer. So, the optimal use of agricultural water realizing the highest irrigation efficiency is mandatory. This study is physical-based model research divided into two parts. The first part is to produce cellulose-based superabsorbent hydrogels extracted from agricultural waste to be used as additives to increase the water retention of the soil. That was produced in the framework of the research to simply obtain the hydrogel using the minimum amount of chemicals and energy. The research results proved that the best process owing to environmental aspect and produced yield can be attributed to the production of the hydrogel from the agricultural waste was the use of 0.5 mole of potassium hydroxide (1 gm to 10 mL) at 90ᵒC for 60 minutes for the extraction of the cellulose that was used with 1.5% potassium persulfate as initiator, 0.25% NN-Methylenebisacrylamide as a crosslinker, and acetic acid for neutralization to produce the hydrogels. Moreover, hydrogels and commercial products underwent laboratory tests (Infrared Spectroscopy with Fourier Transform, Energy Dispersed X-ray analysis, and Scanning Electron Microscopy).