The urea is one of the components of the urine. It is an organic chemical compound that dissolves in alcohol and water and has the ability to crystallize.
The chemical formula for urea is CO (NH2) 2. This diamide (its molecule has two amide groups) of carbonic acid lacks color and odor: therefore it can be said that urea is colorless and odorless.
In addition to urine, urea is present in fecal matter, blood, semen, and lymph, among other fluids and substances. It also appears in the bones, lungs, liver, and heart. Urea is produced when proteins are metabolized and elements that have nitrogen are degraded.
The process that leads to the formation of this chemical compound is known as the urea cycle. The animals that develop the amino nitrogen excretion as urea are rated as ureotelic. On the other hand, if the expulsion of amine nitrogen occurs as ammonia, the organisms are called ammonotelic, while if they do so as uric acid, they are classified as uricotelic.
The discovery of urea in urine took place in 1727, by the scientist Herman Boerhaave, a native of the Netherlands, although some attribute it to Hilaire Rouelle, a French chemist. Just a century later, a German chemist named Friedrich Wöhler managed to obtain urea artificially, through the combination of ammonium chloride and silver cyanate; It is worth mentioning that never before has an organic compound been synthesized with inorganic materials and without using living organisms.
Importantly, urea can be used in different contexts. Urea is used to produce resins, plastics, inks, cosmetics, and adhesives, among other substances. Most of the urea is used as a fertilizer anyway. When applied in the field, the crops receive nitrogen. Urea can also be mixed with livestock feed, as a supplement that helps to form proteins.
As mentioned in the previous paragraph, almost all of the urea produced - 91% - is used to create fertilizer. In addition to its application to the soil to provide nitrogen to the plants, there is the foliar use fertilizer, which is achieved with low biuret urea, a reagent that serves to detect the presence of compounds with a minimum of two peptide bonds, such as peptides short and protein.
This type of fertilizer can be used in various kinds of crops, and it is always necessary to counteract the great loss of nitrogen that the harvest entails. It is important to apply urea to the soil correctly, preventing it from remaining on the surface.
Regarding the use of urea for the industrial production of certain materials, such as plastics, we can also mention finishes for textile, metal or paper articles, and pharmaceutical products. A specific example is urea-formaldehyde, a kind of adhesive or resin that does not soften with heat once it has been molded.
On the other hand, urea can be used as an adulterant to make drugs, and among them is methamphetamine, a highly potent psychostimulant, indicated to treat attention deficit, narcolepsy and obesity.