There is an increasing interest in application of nanotechnology to develop agrochemicals to improve the sustainability of food production. Nanomaterials (NMs) can be used to provide targeted delivery of agrochemicals to plants in real settings and/ or to increase their bioavailability through sustained controlled release over aperiod of time (Rodrigues et al, 2017). However there are still significant knowledge gaps related to the effect of soil properties on their efficacy during field applications, and on the fate and effects of NMs added to soils.<br/><br/>One specific knowledge gap is the types and rates of physical and chemical transformations of NMs in soil, and how these transformations affect NMs fate and reactivity in soil, and bioavailability to plants. Here, we correlate NM properties and soil properties with the dissolution of different forms of Cu-based NMs, and correlate the dissolution with the potential availability for plant uptake of metal and metal-based NMs in agricultural soils. Soil pH and the concentration and type of dissolved organic matter (DOM) most affected the stability of the NMs in soil. We also discuss whether classical theories of geochemical and transport modelling can grasp the complexity of structural and chemical transformations of NMs in soils and to fully account for the impact of soil geochemistry on the fate and efficacy of nano-enabled agrochemicals. Specifically, this study demonstrates that if the key properties controlling the transformation (particularly dissolution) of specific types (or groups) of NMs in soils are identified and integrated in the models, it is possible to apply existing geochemical models to predict the fate of NMs in soil.<br/><br/>

The role of soil properties on the transformation, fate and efficacy of nano-enabled agrochemicals in the soil system

255th National Meeting (2018)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.