Synthesis of Fe-Modified EDDHA Complexes and Their Application for Fe Micro-Nutrition for Plants

In the current research work, the idea is to find an iron-chelating agent to nourish plants and eventually feed humans and reduce the lack of iron in people's nutrition. In this work EDDHA, the most applied chelating agent for agricultural purposes was modified to reduce its high solubility in water and improve its stability under sunlight. The high solubility of EDDHA in water causes the plant to lose the applied solution in the next watering and not have enough time to absorb the nutrition. With this modification, EDDHA is able to tolerate sunlight which has a strong UV portion. This UV irradiation causes the conventional EDDHA to isomerize and lose the valuable Fe ions but with the new and improved EDDHA there is no room for isomerization. The effect of prepared chelates on chlorophyll production, average leaf length and Width, and average plant length was investigated.