Synthesis and application of biopolymer hydrogels for seed germination in Calendula
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Date
2021
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Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana
Abstract
Rice straw is renewable, non-edible, cost effective and abundantly available feedstock,
burning of which leads to emission of hazardous gases, therefore its utilisation is important to
reduce extensive atmospheric pollution. The percent composition of rice straw was
determined by detergent system method and was found to contain 20.00, 41.00, 24.00, 9.00
and 6.00% extractives, cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin and acid-insoluble ash (silica),
respectively. Lignin was extracted by using the dilute acid pretreatment method of rice straw,
in which rice straw was treated with 1% H₂SO₄ followed by its alkaline hydrolysis. Lignin
was structurally characterized by FT-IR, ¹H and ¹³C NMR spectra. Lignin hydrogels were
synthesized using lignin as raw material, poly vinyl alcohol as a matrix template and
epichlorohydrin as a crosslinker followed by their characterization using FT-IR and SEM
analysis. Different concentrations of lignin hydrogels (0.2%, 0.5%, 0.8% and 1%) were
synthesized out of which 0.5% lignin hydrogels proved to be the most efficient due to their
high swelling ratio i.e. 130.34 and high reswelling capacity. The dye adsorption capacity of
lignin hydrogels came out to be more than that of neat PVA hydrogels. This was followed by
evaluation of lignin hydrogels as culture media for seed germination of Calendula. Further,
root length, shoot length, root:shoot length, seed vigour index, germination percentage and
germination index were noted. It was concluded that 0.5% and 0.8% lignin hydrogels have
proved to be efficient as culture media for seed germination of flowering plant Calendula.
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Citation
Sharma, Rupali (2021) Synthesis and application of biopolymer hydrogels for seed germination in Calendula (Unpublished M.Sc. thesis). Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, Punjab, India.