Uptake and accumulation of engineered nanomaterials and their phytotoxicity to agricultural crops

Abstract

Rapidly expanding world population and dwindling arable land around the world demand innovative technologies to drastically enhance the global crop yield in the near future. The advancement in nanotechnology provides some possibility to achieve this goal. However, the application of nanomaterial containing fertilizers and other agricultural products also carries environmental and health risks such as the accumulation of nanomaterial residues in edible tissues, which leads to potential phytotoxicity to agricultural crops and disturbance to the ecosystem. These environmental and health risks need to be well understood before the application of nanotechnology in agriculture can be fully embraced. This chapter presents a summary on the available information concerning the uptake, transport, and accumulation of engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) by agricultural crops and their potential toxicity to these crops. This chapter also discusses the modifications of the fate and transport of coexisting environmental chemicals by ENMs and potential correlations between the unique properties of ENMs with their fate and impact in agricultural systems to shed light on further beneficial applications of ENMs in agriculture.