title: NanoRevolution in Agriculture: Unveiling NanoPesticides for Sustainable Crop Protection and Beyond"
title: Nanoparticles Family, Microparticles Assessment
titleType: Subtitle
Creators: name: Shoaib, Minahil
name: Waseem, Rafia
name: Khaliq, Hafiz Muhammad Haseeb
Publisher: name: Zenodo openAIRE, Google Scholar Indexed
Year: 2024
Subjects: Nanopesticides, Crop Protection, NanoRevolution, Nanoemulsion, Nanoformulation.

description: ABSTRACT

Nanotechnology has greatly revolutionized in the field of agriculture for manufacturing of pesticides because of their low toxicity, controlled release, high solubility in aqueous solvent, and maintaining the nutritional content of crops. Various nanoformulations such as polymer based (starch, gelatin, lignin), lipid encapsulations, and greener encapsulation have been used in manufacturing of nanopesticides. The active ingredients of nanopesticides are released by diffusion and dissolution methods and their effectiveness mainly depend on the concentration of the active ingredient and the release rate of nanocarriers. Many of the metallic nanopesticides have been formulated such as oxides and hydroxide of zinc, copper, silver, titanium, etc. Moreover, solid nanocarrier based pesticides have also been developed which contains silica, diatomaceous earth, alumina and nanoclays as their active ingredients. Microorganism such as Bacillus thuringiensis has also been formulated using nanotechnology to form nanobiopesticides because this bacterium contains cry gene which shows insecticidal activity. Many of the non-target organisms such as fish, amphibians, annelids (earthworm) also get affected by nanopesticides so release of these nanocarriers should be target specific. Moreover, nanopesticides also impose toxic effects to human and environment so great considerations and assessments should be made for their use. Thus, such nanopesticides should be manufactured that are environment friendly and non-toxic for human health

Keywords: Nanopesticides,Crop Protection ,NanoRevolution,Nanoemulsion,Nanoformulation.

INTRODUCTION

Due to rapid increase in world population, there is a huge demand of food crops which ultimately leads to the large use of insecticides and pesticides to control pests and other plant pathogens. As we know that, bacterial and fungal pathogens can cause great loss in quality and yield of crops. To control these pathogens mostly synthetic chemicals are used which not only destroy harmful pathogens but are also toxic to the useful plants and the environment. About 90 % of the pesticide applied to crops is released in the environment which is toxic for humans [1]. Chemical pesticides such as organochlorines, organophosphates, organo-carbonates and carbamates can cause disease 

resistance in plants, reduce their ability to fix nitrogen and also disturbs the soil microflora. Now a days, great advancements have been done in agriculture sector by implementation of nanotechnology for manufacturing of pesticides. Nanopesticides contain nanoparticle formulations that range in size from 100nm to about 1000nm. Nanoparticles of 100nm has such properties that are not present in non-nanoscale particles. Nanoparticles of copper, zinc, silver are effectively used in manufacturing of nano-pesticides. Such nano-formulations should be used in making pesticides that should be remain stable and potentially active in the environment. These nano-pesticides effectively penetrate in the bacteria and fungus and destroy them.

Many parameters such as size, shape, crystalline structure, chemical composition is considered for synthesizing nanoparticles in order to manufacture pesticides. Nanoparticles are mostly formed from natural materials by changing their composition in form of emulsions, dispersions, metallic oxides, polymers etc [2]. Pesticides involving nanoformulations has following advantages [3].

●        Nanopesticides are more soluble in water as compared to synthetic chemical pesticides.

●        Nanoformulations increased the stability of pesticides when they are sprayed on crops.

●        Active particles from nanopesticides are slowly released which effectively kill the pests.

●        Nanoformulations prevents the early degradation of a pesticide.

●        Nanopesticides have high degree of insecticidal activity because of their smaller particle size and high surface area. 

Polymer based nanomaterials to manufacture pesticides are derived from biodegradable polymers. Nanoencapsulation is also an effective method to make pesticides. Plant pathogenic fungi is highly resistant to chemical pesticides so mostly nanoformulations of copper, silver and titanium are used to kill them. Fungal species of Xanthomonas and Pseudomonas are mostly removed from plant crops by nano-silver particles [4]. Copper based nanoformulations are mostly used to kill bacterial species