Urea is an organic compound with the chemical formula 2CO (NH2). This compound is colorless, odorless and relatively non-toxic and has a high solubility in water.
Urea is widely used in chemical fertilizers as a rich and convenient nitrogen source. In fact, more than 90% of the world’s production of urea for use as a chemical fertilizer contains nitrogen. In general applications, urea has the highest nitrogen content of all solid nitrogen fertilizers.
Accordingly, urea incurs the lowest transportation cost per unit nitrogen feed. Urea is hydrolyzed in the soil to ammonia and carbon dioxide.
The result of this process is oxidized to nitrate by bacteria in the soil and can be absorbed by plants as a result. Urea is also one of the most important raw materials in the chemical industry and is used in the production of plastics, especially urea formaldehyde resins, adhesives such as urea formaldehyde and melamine formaldehyde, potassium cyanate and urea nitrate.