Review Of More Than 1,000 Articles Seeks To Understand How Nanomaterials Affect Plants

Researchers from the Center for Nuclear Energy for Agriculture at the University of São Paulo in Brazil (CENA-USP), together with colleagues from Canada, France, Italy and Spain, examined 1,154 articles by original scientists published between 2009 and 2022. nanomaterials. In 1374, plants belonging to 253 species. A meta-data review collected and organized quantitative information on experimental parameters used in the scientific literature over the last decade.

Using metadata (information from data published in the literature), the authors have so far obtained a collective knowledge of the most used nanomaterials, the type of environment to which the plants are exposed, the most common treatment methods, and the systematic duration. to studies. Additionally, they calculated the percentage of nanomaterial treatments that had positive, negative, and both and no effects on plants.

The findings are reported in Environmental Science. In an article published in the journal Nano .

"If we want to take advantage of the properties of nanomaterials to improve productivity or learn how they might threaten the environment, we need to plan our research and conduct it effectively. The results obtained as a result of this experiment depend on the way it is carried out," says Hudson Wallace Pereira de Carvalho, the last author of the article. Carvalho Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Sao Paulo (USP) and the University of Paris XI (now Paris-Saclay).

For example, the authors concluded that 71% of studies did not use a positive control, whereas any assessment of nanoparticle exposure should include micrometric particles or soluble compounds of similar chemical composition. "This strategy can adequately separate the effects of nanoscale properties from those of ions or microparticles," Carvalho said.

Another point that was investigated was the amount of nanomaterials that the plants were exposed to. "We found that the levels of a particular chemical element were generally higher than the levels that plants are exposed to naturally in the environment or to which they are exposed in agricultural production," he said. This led to the question. Are the effects, especially the negative ones, related to high-level nanomaterial properties or the nanoscale world?

The authors also found that the studies were shorter than the life cycles of the cultures involved. The average duration of experiments for plants grown in soil was 49 days, for the annual crop cycle - 90-120 days. Few studies have evaluated the impact of nanomaterial-based processing on product yield and quality.

In addition, few experiments (6%) were conducted under field conditions, which required considerable effort. In field trials, variables such as weather, pathogens, and soil vary from location to location, so more than one location and even more than one crop cycle must be covered.

On the other hand, before applying nanoparticles to crops, care must be taken to design field experiments to avoid release of potentially toxic substances into the environment.

Effect on microorganisms

The authors also found that only 19% of studies on the application of nanoparticles to soil measured their effects on microorganisms. "Microorganisms are necessary to maintain soil fertility," Carvalho said. “It's hard to draw conclusions about why the experiments were done the way they were. However, our meta-analysis suggests possibilities and directions that may be worthwhile. “This is a relatively new field of interdisciplinary knowledge. performed. to be studied."

For example, certain properties are known to be more pronounced in particles smaller than 29 nanometers. The study found that about half of the treatments used particle sizes above this threshold. "This may mean that we are still trying to understand how particle size affects plants," Carvalho said.

Overall, the results highlight "the complex relationship between our ability to make inferences and the experimental design used," the authors conclude, adding that "this comprehensive and state-of-the-art review of the effects of nanomaterials on plant systems, rev. The introduction of nanomaterials with nanotechnology-based resources, such as the controlled release of fertilizers and pesticides into, or replacement of, questionable metabolic and photosystems will lead to additional yield increases or disrupt agriculture by solving so far unsolved problems such as plant stress and defense mechanisms or modulation.

Additional information: Alba García-Rodriguez et al., Mechanical effects of human digestion on magnesium oxide nanoparticles. Probiotics Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus GG and Bifidobacterium bifidum VPI 1124, Environmental Sciences . DOI: 10.1039/D2EN00150K

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