Sustainable Nanomaterials - Chapter 6: Sustainable application of nanomaterials for the agricultural industry

The agricultural industry is one of the most critical and widespread sectors of the world economy; this sector produces and supplies products and raw materials for the food industry and other areas, such as manufacturing, personal care products, and the energy sector. The agricultural industry can be understood as a set of bioprocesses based on the fixation of carbon and minerals through renewable processes. It is, therefore, a sector based on the production and transformation of biomass. Undoubtedly, new and innovative techniques such as nanotechnology, biotechnology, and information technology are promising for achieving sustainable agriculture. Thus, to achieve this goal, the stages and inputs related to production processes must satisfy economic, social, and environmental sustainability. Thus, nanotechnology offers several approaches, materials, and strategies with enormous potential to transform the agricultural sector, such as nanoencapsulation and nanostructuring of nutrients, fertilizers, and pesticides based on organic substances of low molecular weight, polymeric materials, and inorganic compounds, to mention some of the most relevant. In this sense, this chapter describes (NM) applied to the agricultural industry, including specific applications such as nanofertilizers (NFs), nanoencapsulation for controlled release systems, and the production of new functional NM. In turn, as the application of NM obtained by conventional chemical synthesis is considered environmentally unfriendly, aspects of nanostructures obtained from plant and microbiological systems are addressed as promising alternatives for sustainable agricultural systems. Therefore, green nanotechnology applied to the agricultural industry is also analyzed, especially synthesis strategies, applications, and main limitations.