What Is Graphene Coating? Raising Fertilizer Efficiency and Soil Health

Crops absorb less than half of what is applied. Since adopting graphene-coated controlled release, HERMEN has lifted fertilizer use efficiency from a conventional 30–40% to 40–60% — that is what this technology means in practice.

How Much Fertilizer Actually Reaches the Crop?

Conventional fertilizer nutrients are leached, volatilised and fixed in the soil, so only about thirty to forty per cent is taken up. The rest is lost. And the cost is not only financial: applying more to compensate acidifies and compacts the soil, producing a cycle where more fertilizer yields steadily poorer land.

Breaking that cycle depends not on applying more, but on matching the rhythm of nutrient release to the rhythm of crop uptake.

What Is Graphene, and Why Coat Fertilizer With It?

It is often mistaken for a chemical additive. Graphene is not a synthesised compound — it is the most basic form of carbon material. Peel graphite down layer by layer until a single atom remains in thickness, and that is graphene.

Two properties make it suited to coating. Its lattice is exceptionally dense, sealing out moisture, and it is strongly water-repellent. Together these form a nutrient diffusion barrier around each granule — not sealing nutrients away, but acting as an adjustable gate that governs how fast they release.

From Advanced Industry into the Field

Graphene has been used mainly in advanced industrial applications with demanding requirements for material stability. The difficulty was never the material but the process: coating every granule uniformly under the high temperatures of tower granulation, at a cost agriculture can bear.

HERMEN works with a leading international graphene innovation group to license this coating technology, built on over five hundred patents, then tunes formulation and release curves to Taiwan’s crops, climate and soils. Production uses a formaldehyde-free tower process, removing any concern about formaldehyde residue at source.

What Changes for the Crop and the Soil

Controlled release does more than slow fertilizer down. Nutrients release progressively according to soil moisture and temperature, so supply tracks the crop’s uptake peaks instead of discharging at once and leaving the surplus to be lost.

Field trials also show the soil itself improving:

• Higher soil porosity — compaction broken up, better aeration and water retention, room for roots to develop downward
• Markedly higher organic matter, building a deeper base of soil fertility
• Stronger nutrient adsorption, holding potassium and nitrogen in place rather than losing them to water
• Beneficial soil microbes encouraged, supporting germination and root growth
• Improved crop tolerance of drought and low-temperature stress

For long-cultivated fields already showing compaction, this often matters more than a single season’s yield gain, because fertility rebuilds year on year.

Compared with Conventional Resin Coating

Coated controlled-release fertilizer is not new; resin coatings already exist. The difference lies in the coating material, and it determines three things growers notice:

• Use efficiency: 40–60% with graphene coating, against roughly 30–40% conventionally
• Degradation: graphene coating degrades at over 99%, leaving no residue; resin coating does not degrade and accumulates in the tilled layer
• Caking in storage: held below 3% after six months, against over 60% for conventional anti-caking agents
• Overall cost: standardised production brings total cost down by around 20% against conventional methods

The most easily overlooked yet most keenly felt is caking. A coated fertilizer that cakes in storage spreads unevenly and jams machinery, and the best formulation in the world suffers for it.

Registered with Taiwan’s Ministry of Agriculture

Compliance is a precondition for use in the field. HERMEN fertilizer products using graphene coating technology have been reviewed by the Ministry of Agriculture and approved for sale in Taiwan:

• Hepule-S (NPK 30-10-10) | Fertilizer Import (Compound) Reg. No. 0955040
• Niannianhe-S (NPK 29-10-8) | Fertilizer Import (Compound) Reg. No. 0955042

Hepule-S is formulated for mechanical side-dressing in transplanted rice, combining transplanting and fertilizing in a single pass, with a release curve matched to the crop’s uptake peaks — greatly reducing later topdressing.

Want to Know More?

To find out whether this technology suits your fields and growing method, start with the Hepule S product page, or see our stage-by-stage guide to rice fertilization.

For a fertilization plan tailored to your own crop and region, contact the HERMEN agronomy team.

Note: trial figures cited here were provided by our technology partner. Actual results vary with crop, soil conditions, climate and crop management.