main application
Medical applications:
Dermatology uses certain medicaments containing urea to increase the moisture of the skin. The occlusive dressing used for non-surgically removed nails contains 40% urea.
The carbon-14-breath test, which tests the presence of Helicobacter pylori, uses carbon 14 or carbon 13 labeled urea. Because Helicobacter pylori's urease uses urea to produce ammonia to increase the pH of its surrounding stomach. The same principle can also test similar bacteria living in animal stomachs.
Agricultural applications:
Urea is a high-concentration nitrogen fertilizer, a neutral quick-acting fertilizer, and can also be used to produce a variety of compound fertilizers. No harmful substances remain in the soil, and long-term application has no adverse effects. Animal husbandry can be used as feed for ruminants. However, excessively high temperature in granulation will produce a small amount of biuret, also known as biuret, which has an inhibitory effect on crops. my country stipulates that the content of urea biuret used in fertilizers should be less than 0.5%. When the biuret content exceeds 1%, seed fertilizer, seedling fertilizer and foliar fertilizer cannot be used, and the urea content in other application periods should not be too much or too concentrated.
Urea is an organic nitrogen fertilizer. After being hydrolyzed into ammonium carbonate or ammonium bicarbonate by the action of urease in the soil, it can be absorbed and utilized by crops. Therefore, urea should be applied 4 to 8 days before the fertilization period of the crop.
Commercial applications:
Raw materials for special plastics, especially urea-formaldehyde resin
Raw materials of certain glues
Fertilizer and feed ingredients
Instead of sprinkling antifreeze salt on the street, the advantage is that it does not corrode the metal
Strengthen the smell of cigarettes
Gives industrially produced pretzels brown
The ingredients of certain shampoos and cleansers
The component of the emergency refrigeration pack, because the reaction of urea and water will absorb heat
Treat exhaust gas from diesel engines, engines, and thermal power plants, especially to reduce its nitrogen oxides
Ingredients of rain-inducing agent <mixed salt>
Used to separate paraffin in the past, because urea can form clathrates
Refractory
The composition of environmentally friendly engine fuel
Ingredients of teeth whitening products
For chemical fertilizer
Important auxiliary in dyeing and printing
Laboratory applications:
Urea can be very effective in denaturing proteins, especially in the destruction of non-covalently bound proteins. This feature can improve the solubility of certain proteins, the concentration of which can reach 10 moles/volume. Urea can also be used to make urea nitrate.
Feed additives:
The shortage of human food resources and protein has also caused a major problem in the feed industry. The industry is actively looking for new sources of protein and expanding to sources of nitrogen other than protein, such as urea with high nitrogen content.
In 1897, Waesk et al. proposed the idea that ruminants could convert non-protein nitrogen into bacterial protein. In 1949, C. J. Watson and others fed sheep with N15-labeled urea capsules. Four days later, N15-containing protein was detected in the sheep's blood, liver, and kidney. This confirms that ruminants can use non-protein nitrogen. In the same year, J. K. Looli and others fed sheep with urea as the sole nitrogen source and found that sheep can have a positive nitrogen balance, indicating that microorganisms in the rumen of sheep can use urea to synthesize 10 essential amino acids needed for their growth. Since then, urea and urea compounds have become feed additives for ruminants.
Application in cosmetics:
Urea is a very useful moisturizing ingredient. It exists in the stratum corneum of the skin and is the main component of the skin's natural moisturizing factor NMF. For the skin, urea has the effect of moisturizing and softening the keratin, so it can also prevent the stratum corneum from blocking the pores, thereby improving the problem of acne. It is used to add moisturizing ingredients in facial masks, skin care lotions, creams, hand creams and other products. The addition ratio is 3-5%.
Industrial applications:
It has a brightening effect on the chemical polishing of steel and stainless steel. It is used as a corrosion inhibitor in metal pickling and is also used in the preparation of palladium activation solution.
