Wheat Starch Derived Nanoparticles For Sustainable Agriculture

Nanotechnology applications for food packaging constitute the largest share of the current and short-term predicted market for applications in the food sector. While most applications of nanotechnology in the food and agriculture sectors are currently at R&D or near-market stages, the applications for food packaging are rapidly becoming a commercial reality. Nanotechnology has also enabled the development of nanosensors that can be applied as labels or coatings to add an intelligent function to food packaging in terms of ensuring the integrity of the package through detection of leaks (for foodstuffs packed under vacuum or inert atmosphere), indications of time–temperature variations (e.g. freeze–thaw–refreezing), or microbial safety (deterioration of foodstuffs). The nanomaterial developed for different industrial and civic utilization is based on carbon, metals, and oxides containing Cu, Al, Au, Ag, Si, Zn and other elements. The use of nanotechnology in food and agricultural applications has also raised a number of safety, environmental, ethical, policy and regulatory issues. The main issues relate to the potential effects and impacts on human health and the environment that might arise from exposure to nanosized materials. Toxicity of the ecosystem, potential residue carry-over in foodstuff, and nanomaterials phytotoxicity are some of the major concerns for application of nanomaterials in agriculture. Moreover, it has been reported that the same nanomaterial has different effects on different plants, affecting the cultural rotation practice if the nanomaterial is not rapidly degraded. In this respect particularly promising are approaches based on the use of polysaccharides, such as cellulose and hemicelluloses, to obtain nanofillers with interesting characteristics. Also starch is receiving a special attention being a natural polymer, renewable and biodegradable, produced by many plants as reserve material. The proposed approach is based on the use of amylose, obtained from lines of wheat selected for high amylase content, to produce nanocontainers for pesticides and special fertilizers. Amylose is a biodegradable molecule, that is present in our selected line in a very high concentration (up to 70%). This molecule can be easily functionalized, making his degradation capable of modulating by time and increasing the efficiency of the intervention. It is our intention to use the nanocountainers obtained by amylose in plant protection utilizing last generation of pesticides and in plant nutrition with fertilizers and biostimulants. This will allow the utilization of reduced quantities of active principles, to increase the efficiency and to lower the impact on the environment.