Targeted agrochemical delivery using smart nanoparticles for sustainable agriculture

Food security, increased agricultural yield and more benign agricultural methods are requisite aspirations for the foreseeable future. As part of this, encapsulation of active ingredients (AI's) within biocompatible and biodegradable nanoparticles has promise by which to enhance the beneficial properties of contained AI's and mitigate their more pernicious effects, for example atrazine contained within poly(epsilon-caprolactone) nanocapsules.
The aspiration of this research is to use newly developed lipid nanoparticles (LNP's) for the targeted and environmentally responsive delivery of agrochemicals.
LNP's will be designed to deliver agrochemicals via slow release. Furthermore, pH-responsive LNP's will be designed to deliver strigolactones to enhance to promote the symbiotic relationship between plants with roots and soil fungi known as mycorrhizas.
The lipid nanoparticles will be produced using microfluidic tools. Meanwhile, Small Angle Neutron/X-rays scattering and cryo-TEM will elucidate structural characteristics of the LNP's for rational design of delivery vectors. AI release efficiency will be determined using fluorescent microscopy.
Eventually, the environmental behaviour and properties of the LNP's will be tested in an agricultural setting at the Global Institute of Food and Environment University Farm.