No abstract

No abstract

Climate change, depletion and pollution of natural resources, and ever-increasing population are the factors that threaten and burden the agriculture sector. It is important that new technologies are adopted to revolutionize the existing conventional agricultural methods. These methods must not only be lucrative to agriculture but also be beneficial for the environment. Seed treatments are evolving as novel techniques to facilitate better germination and growth of seedlings. Conventional methods exploit extensive use of pesticides and fungicides for the same. This work attempts to develop a novel and sustainable production method of quaternary ammonium seaweed polysaccharide salts for seed treatment exhibiting excellent germination of the seeds. Eight quaternary ammonium salts were investigated for their formation of seaweed polysaccharide (alginic acid) salt. Tetramethyl ammonium hydroxide showed the maximum dissolution of alginic acid (20%w/v) with a recovery rate of 91.8% of tetramethyl ammonium alginate (TMAA). The structure of TMAA was confirmed by Fourier transform infrared, 1H NMR, and X-ray diffraction. TMAA production directly from three different seaweeds of Sargassum species was attempted with a maximum yield of 31.2%. Cellulose was also extracted as a byproduct of the developed method; thereby, no waste was generated and the entire seaweed biomass was exploited. Seed treatment with TMAA exhibited enhanced growth in shoot length, total plant height, total plant weight, shoot weight, and root weight. The phytotoxicity, microbial toxicity, and phytoremediation studies of TMAA revealed that it is non-toxic and environment-friendly, envisaging its use in agricultural applications.