Imparting soil water repellency with polymeric microcapsules

Abstract

<p>Hydrophobized soils, which have a functional hydrophobic coating, can restrict water infiltration and thus have various engineering applications. Microencapsulation approaches, developed for self-healing applications emerge as a potential solution to switch the hydraulic prop-erties of soil. In soils, microcapsules have been successfully implemented in agriculture to improve plant nutrition, based on the release of fertilizers into the soil from the microcapsules. The aim of this study is to impart soil water repellency with polymeric microcapsules by releasing hydropho-bic cargo into soil. In this research, the hydrophobic cargo was encapsulated and mixed with soil. The released hydrophobic cargo and the soil hydrophobicity change was measured. The results show that the polymeric microcapsule could impart water repellency in soils.<br></p>