Nanoclay as Carriers of Bioactive Molecules Applied to Agriculture

Abstract

Plants constitute the world’s primary food source. Thus, due to demographic growth in recent years there has been a tendency to maximize agricultural yields. Active molecules are useful to improve different aspects related to plant production and yield. Immobilization, encapsulation, and vehiculization of active principles, as amino-acids, biostimulants, and nutrients, among others, have been widely used in agriculture but also in other industries to protect, release and functionalize the desired active ingredient with more effective biological action. Thanks to vehiculization they are less exposed to adverse environmental factors and also help stabilizing the bioactive ingredient, potentially enhancing their viability and also the stability during storage. Different types of vehicles such as clays, polymers, and liposomes have been used for such purpose. Clays are inorganic, inexpensive, and naturally occurring materials with variability in chemical constitution depending on their group’s and sources being the clay platelets nanoparticulated. Clays often have very high surface area and cation exchange capacity that make them very useful to carry several kinds of substances. The intercalation of agrochemicals into nanoclays can offers multiple benefits. Galleries provide a place for active molecules whereas inorganic sheets offer protection against environmentally induced rapid disintegration and intermolecular forces could guarantee sustained-release allowing long treatments but using the same amounts of active ingredient. Particularly, the use of nanoclays for the controlled delivery of fertilizers, phytohormones, and pesticides have open new studies and opportunities. Then, the use of nanoclay-based systems could produce huge benefits for agriculture in the next several decades and the applications could be expanded into a much wider field of primary agricultural production. This chapter aims to review the current developments in the vehiculization of active principles in nanoclays with promissory action and application to modern or more sustainable agriculture.