Abstract:
Fertilizer is an important nutrient used for soil conditioning and plant growth. The application of
synthetic fertilizer has a significant adverse effect on the soil ecosystem and human health.
Valorization of organic matter could evade the use of chemical fertilizer since they are
environmentally friends. Sheep wool and banana peels were used to produce liquid organic
fertilizer by alkali hydrolysis. Ash and moisture content, and fourier transform infrared radiation
analysis of raw materials was done before the experiments. The extraction of keratin protein from
sheep wool by alkali was optimized using the response surface method. The effect of different
process parameters such as, reaction temperature, the concentration of NaOH, and reaction time
were investigated. The optimum percentage of keratin yield was (75.62%) resulting at 63.97℃ of
reaction temperature, 0.70N of concentration of NaOH, and 46.86 min of reaction time. The
experimental extraction yield (75.15%) agreed with the predicted value (75.62%) indicating the
validation of the model. The macro and micro-nutrient level of the produced fertilizer was
investigated. The fertilizer produced from only wool has 11.96%, 0.25%, and 0.10 % of Nitrogen,
phosphorus, and potassium respectively, and from only peel has contains 0.71%, 1.72%, and
6.89% of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium respectively. The produced fertilizer by combining
mass fraction of wool's and peels contains primary nutrients, (5.76 -6.87) % of nitrogen, (2.58 –
3.6)% of potassium and ( 0.76 – 1.54)% of phosphorus, and, they were well fit the boundary limit
of Food and agricultural organization, and industrially produced organic fertilizer. The
composition of sheep wool and banana peel influences the pH of the produced liquid organic
fertilizer. Based on the result of obtained data, liquid-organic fertilizer from sheep wool and
banana peel contains a good value of total organic carbon (16.24 -19.24) % and electrical
conductivity (8.65 -7.52) dsm-1
.
