Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 5
Nanotechnology Applied in Agriculture:
Controlled Release of Agrochemicals
Fauze A. Aouada and Marcia R. de Moura
Abstract In the last few years, the use of nanotechnology to control environmental
pollution has considerably increased. Several nanostructured or nanometric dimen-
sional materials have been used as carrier vehicles in the controlled release of
agrochemicals due to their biodegradability, low toxicity, low cost, high reproduc-
ibility, easy and fast preparation and characterization, water uptake, and reversible
properties. The major advantages of these systems are the gradual, sustained, and
controlled release over a long period of time, with the aim to improve agricultural
and crop protection. In the case of agrochemicals, the scientific community also
aims to obtain biodegradable matrices (biodegradable carrier vehicles) able to
reduce the number and frequency of applications of nutrients and pesticides in
the soil that would contribute to a decrease in environmental pollution and con-
tamination by pollutants. Thus, it is evident that nanotechnology can play a decisive
role in the agriculture field. However, only a few references (including papers and
reviews) were found in the literature. This gap is most likely related to the short
time that these nanomaterials have been studied for this specific application. With
this in mind, the aim of this chapter is to collect reports about different polymeric,
inorganic, and hybrid nanomatrices (nanocomposites) with great potential for
applications as carrier vehicles in the controlled release of agrochemicals.
5.1
Introduction
The constant need to discover or improve scientific information has encouraged a
great number of scientists across the world to divide or change their current
research focuses. Due to its great potential, nanoscience (Leite et al.
2013
;
Munoz-Sandoval
2013
; Newsome
2014a
,
b
; Ruiz-Hitzky and Aranda
2014
; Vilela
Neto
2014
) has become well-known in the scientific community.
