Pesticides play a key role in controlling weeds, pests, and diseases in modern agriculture to promote crop yield. However, traditional pesticides tended to enter the atmosphere, water, and soil easily through runoff, volatilization, and leaching, resulting in serious environmental problems and even hazards to the health of human beings. It’s urgent to develop new methods to control the pesticide loss.
A joint research team led by Prof. WU Zhengyan from Institute of Intelligent Machines, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) developed a novel pesticide system, named magnetic field-responsively controlled-release imidacloprid (IM) nano-platform (MRCIN), to improve utilization efficiency. The result was published in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering.
In this work, researchers fabricated MRCIN by loading IM in yolk-shell Fe3O4@C. The Fe3O4@C with a large BET surface area acted as a carrier for IM. The most interesting thing was that the Fe3O4 nanoparticles in MRCIN could vibrate under varied electromagnetic field (VEF) to boost release of IM.
Therefore, MRCIN presented an excellent alternating magnetic field-responsively controlled-release performance via designing the frequency and voltage. After release, the existence of Fe3O4 nanoparticles was in favor of the collection of MRCIN from water. Besides, MRCIN could be reutilized at least three times.
The work provides a simple and potential way to achieve the controlled release of IM, improve utilization efficiency, and decline pollution to environment.
This research was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China, the Science and Technology Service Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Key R&D Program of Ningxia Province.
Link to the paper: An alternating magnetic field-responsive nano-platform for controlled imidacloprid release and sustainable pest control
Schematic illustration of mechanism. (Image by ZHANG Lihong)
Contact:
ZHAO Weiwei
Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (http://english.hf.cas.cn/)
Email: annyzhao@ipp.ac.cn
