Comparative Analysis of Major and Emerging Issues in the Field of Chelation of Trace Minerals

Reducing antagonism, interference and competition between minerals, increasing the availability of minerals, neutralizing anti-nutritional substances, increasing performance, improving health (immune system, nutritional activity), comfort and welfare of the animal. Improving the quality of livestock products (meat, milk, wool, etc.), reducing the destructive effect of minerals on vitamins in premixes and supplements, preserving the environment through reducing environmental pollution are some of the effects of using organic minerals. Chelates of organic materials (especially proteins) and metallic elements have a high rate of absorption in the intestine and provide the possibility of reducing the standard level of these elements in the diet and without affecting the production characteristics of livestock and poultry, they reduce environmental pollution caused by these elements. The aim of the current research was to investigate the subject trend of the field of chelate in order to identify hot and emerging issues and to examine the course of changes made in the intellectual structure of this field.

In this research, the intellectual structure of the field of chelate was studied using reference analysis. The current research community consists of all the research and review articles published by researchers during the years 1990-2022 in the journals indexed in the Web of Science database. The source of data collection was web of science database and the data analysis tool for drawing the intellectual structure of this field was Citespace software.

The analyzed data showed that words such as zinc, copper, pig, cattle, metabolism, and bioavailability are prominent words that reflect the hot spots of the chelation field in the investigated time period. Over the years of 2001-2008, the vocabulary such as growth performance, trace element, cobalt, dietary zinc, trace mineral, and 2010-2019, the words such as carcass trait, meat quality, nutrient digestibility, indicating as new and emerging topics. The main points and hot topics in the investigated periods in this research the terms such as zinc with 331 co-occurrences 331, performance 324 and copper 216, supplementation 180 were the main and hot points in the field of chelate. Among the keywords, three keywords of availability, ruminant and calve showed the longest duration of prosperity. These three issues have received the attention of the scientific community for 28, 19 and 16 years, respectively. Also, among the mentioned keywords, the keyword of "pig" with a citation rate of 13.28 has had the most citation rate in the period of 2000-2008 and has been the focus of the scientific community. In general, the hot and emerging spots of the chelate area can be shown in several stages. The first stage, the time period of 1990-2006, in which the emerging topics of this periods included nitrogen, barley, protein, sheep, and zinc; the second stage the time period of 2007-2016, the terms of plasma, and selenium and the third phase the time period of 2017-2022, which included health, muscle, beef, trace minerals and dietary supplementation.

Therefore, according to the hot and emerging issues identified in this study, such a researches can be used as a road map for the country's macro-scientific planning and policies. The results of this research can be used by policy makers involved in research, professors, researchers, and organizations interested organizations in the field of animal husbandry.