Читать книгу Sustainable Nanotechnology - Группа авторов - Страница 70

Fertilizers are generally needed in the soil for nutritional supplement for better growth of plants. Nowadays, mostly farmers use NPK fertilizer, which consists of nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium. Due to the high solubility of NPK fertilizer, it is mostly lost in the environment due to rain.

This approach of addition of fertilizer becomes costly to farmers and harmful to humans and the environment. Due to the advancement in nanotechnology nanofertilizers have been developed, which have the potential to increase the nutritional value of plants. It also has the tendency of slow delivery because the nutrients coated with NMs can control delivery [73]. One study showed that the presence of biosensor in nanofertilizers can control delivery depending on the need of the soil and the growth rate of plant. Singh et al. compared the bulk NPs of zinc oxide on the growth of cabbage and cauliflower. It was observed that compared to bulk ZnO particles, nanozinc particle is more effective in terms of germination growth and protein content [74].