Nanotechnologies are poised to have a huge impact on agriculture

Science is about big ideas that change the world. But sometimes, big impacts come from the tiniest of objects.

Nanotechnology might sound like science fiction, but it represents technologies that have been developed for decades. Nanotechnological approaches have found real-world applications in a wide range of areas, from composite materials in textiles to agriculture.

Agriculture is one of the oldest human inventions, but nanotech provides modern innovations that could dramatically improve the efficiency of our food supply and reduce the environmental impact of its production.

Agriculture comes with costs that farmers are only too familiar with: Crops require substantial amounts of water, land and fuel to produce. Fertilizers and pesticides are needed to achieve the necessary high crop yields, but their use comes with environmental side effects, even as many farmers explore how new technologies can reduce their impact.

The tiniest of objects

Nanotechnology is the science of objects that are a few nanometres—billionths of a meter—across. At this size, objects acquire unique properties. For example, the surface area of a swarm of nanoscale particles is enormous compared to the same mass collected into single large-scale clump.

Varying the size and other properties of nanoscale objects gives us an unprecedented ability to create precision surfaces with highly customized properties.

Employing particles

Traditionally, applying chemicals involves first mixing the active ingredients in water and then spraying the mixture on crops. But the ingredients do not mix easily, making this an inefficient process that requires large quantities of water.

To improve efficiency and reduce environmental impact, farmers need their fertilizers and pesticides to reach their crops and be absorbed into the plant exactly where they're needed—into the roots or the leaves, for example. Ideally, they could use just enough of the chemical to enhance the crop's yield or protect it from attack or infection, which would prevent excess from being wasted.

Custom-made nanoscale systems can use precision chemistry to achieve high-efficiency delivery of fertilizers or pesticides. These active ingredients can be encapsulated in a fashion similar to what happens in targeted drug delivery. The encapsulation technique can also be used to increase the amount dissolved in water, reducing the need for large amounts.

Current applications

Starpharma, a pharmaceutical company, got into this game a few years ago, when it set up a division to apply its nanotechnological innovations to the agriculture sector. The company has since sold its agrochemical business.

Psigryph is another innovative nanotech company in agriculture. Its technology uses biodegradable nanostructures derived from Montmonercy sour cherries extract to deliver bioactive molecules across cell membranes in plants, animals and humans.

My lab has spent years working in nanoscience, and I am proud to see our fundamental understanding of manipulating polymer encapsulation at the nanoscale make its way to applications in agriculture. A former student, Darren Anderson, is the CEO of Vive Crop Protection, named one of Canada's top growing firms: they take chemical and biological pesticides and suspend them in "nanopackets"—which act as incredibly small polymer shuttles—to make them easily reach their target. The ingredients can be controlled and precisely directed when applied on crops.

Existing infrastructure

One bonus of these nanotech developments is that they don't actually require any new equipment whatsoever, which is a tremendous advantage in the financially challenging agricultural industry. Farmers simply mix these products using less water and fuel to make efficiency gains.

Other agricultural uses for nanotech include animal health products, food packaging materials and nanobiosensors for detecting pathogens, toxins and heavy metals in soil. It wouldn't be a surprise to see the widespread use of these new applications in the near future.

As nanotechnologies take flight, this kind of productivity gain will be critical for farmers and a big deal for the rest of us, as the Earth's population continues to grow and the effects of climate change become increasingly obvious. Farmers will need to do more with less.

Fortunately, a few billionths of a meter is the very definition of less. With the help of tiny nanotech, global agriculture is on the verge of some very big things.

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Image: Shutterstock - Vadym Zaitsev

How Nanotechnology can be used to store and create energy

We need to produce energy, and nanotechnology is becoming more and more involved in the creation of it. Here are some of the ways nanotechnology has been used to produce energy and how it could be used to produce energy in the future.

Storing Hydrogen in fuel cell powered cars

To increase the binding energy of hydrogen to a surface level of a fuel tank, researchers are using and producing graphene layers. This way, there can be a higher amount of storage in your car and a lighter weight fuel tank.

You can use these nanotube sheets to wrap around a hot pipe in your car, such as the exhaust, to generate the energy from the heat of the hot pipe which would usually be wasted.

Generating steam from sunlight

Researchers have demonstrated that sunlight, concentrated on nanoparticles, can produce steam with high energy efficiency. A ‘solar steam device’ could be used in developing countries where there is no electricity to purify water and to disinfect dental instruments.

The potential practicality of this nanoscience could be a useful tool in order to prevent less suffering in countries with unfiltered, diseased water and therefore improve the quality of life for people in developing countries.

Increased electricity generated by windmills

Using an epoxy containing carbon nanotubes can enable the creation of stronger and lower weight blades. This enables the production of longer blades, therefore increasing the amount of energy produced from each windmill.

The improved blade design through nanotechnology makes windmills more efficient, meaning that we can become more reliant on windmills to produce a larger amount of our energy rather than fossil fuels.

High efficiency light bulbs

High efficiency light bulbs can be produced through a nano engineered polymer matrix. The new bulbs are not only shatterproof, but also operate at twice the efficiency of compact, fluorescent light bulbs.

This will more efficient light bulbs help to conserve energy and electricity, and across multiple households and buildings across the world this could have a major impact on the amount of energy that we save.

Go to our news page to see more stories and find out more information about the possibilities of Nanotechnology.