“Production and Characterization of Liquid - Organic Fertilizer from Sheep Wool and Banana Peel

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 .