World population is expected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050, which makes a great challenge the achievement of food security. The use of urease inhibitors in agricultural practices has long been explored as one of the strategies to guarantee food supply in enough amounts. This is due to the fact that urea, one of the most used nitrogen (N) fertilizers worldwide, rapidly undergoes urease-driven hydrolysis on soil surface yielding up to 70% N losses to environment. This review provides with a compilation of what has been done since 2005 with respect to the search for good urease inhibitors of agricultural interests. The potential of synthetic organic molecules, such as phosphoramidates, hydroquinone, quinones, (di)substituted thioureas, benzothiazoles, coumarin and phenolic aldehyde derivatives, and vanadium-hydrazine complexes, together with B, Cu, S, Zn, ammonium thiosulfate, silver nanoparticles, and oxidized charcoal as urease inhibitors was presented from experiments with purified jack bean urease, different soils and/or plant-soil systems. The ability of some urease inhibitors to mitigate formation of greenhouse gases is also discussed.
Keywords: Crop production; Nitrogen fertilizer; Pollution mitigation; Urea; Urease inhibitors.