Application of graphene based composites in agriculture
type: CreativeWork
description: The main challenge faced by agricultural research is to produce high quantity and quality food to feed a constantly growing world population. Fertilizers are an essential component of productive agricultural systems, but their efficiency of use is low due to losses to the atmosphere, soil and waters, which consequently can cause environmental damage. In addition, reaction of nutrients with soil components reduces their availability to plants and thus they may accumulate in soil. Nutrients may also be leached from soil and end up in rivers, lakes and the ocean. Improving fertilizer use efficiency is therefore a global goal and new engineering approaches are needed to design more effective nutrient delivery systems to crops which minimize losses to the environment. Recent strategies to address these problems are based on designing slow-release fertilizers using porous materials or polymer-coating of conventional fertilizers, which have seen some success but are severely limited by their cost. Graphene (GN) and its derivatives may offer a path-way to develop more efficient fertilizers due to the outstanding physicochemical properties of GN. During the relatively short time since the discovery of GN in 2004, its unique properties have attracted great interest in multiple fields including chemistry, physics, materials science, biology and engineering. The two dimensional structure of GN, in addition to its high surface area, makes this material very attractive for the delivery of drugs or genetic material and there is also potential for application as a nutrient carrier in agriculture. Despite being one atom thick, GN is the strongest material ever tested and its unique mechanical properties made it a favourable candidate to be used as a reinforcement material to enhance the toughness of different composites and therefore a potential application to enhance the mechanical properties of fertilizer granules. Therefore, considering the excellent properties of GN-based materi…
abstract: The main challenge faced by agricultural research is to produce high quantity and quality food to feed a constantly growing world population. Fertilizers are an essential component of productive agricultural systems, but their efficiency of use is low due to losses to the atmosphere, soil and waters, which consequently can cause environmental damage. In addition, reaction of nutrients with soil components reduces their availability to plants and thus they may accumulate in soil. Nutrients may also be leached from soil and end up in rivers, lakes and the ocean. Improving fertilizer use efficiency is therefore a global goal and new engineering approaches are needed to design more effective nutrient delivery systems to crops which minimize losses to the environment. Recent strategies to address these problems are based on designing slow-release fertilizers using porous materials or polymer-coating of conventional fertilizers, which have seen some success but are severely limited by their cost. Graphene (GN) and its derivatives may offer a path-way to develop more efficient fertilizers due to the outstanding physicochemical properties of GN. During the relatively short time since the discovery of GN in 2004, its unique properties have attracted great interest in multiple fields including chemistry, physics, materials science, biology and engineering. The two dimensional structure of GN, in addition to its high surface area, makes this material very attractive for the delivery of drugs or genetic material and there is also potential for application as a nutrient carrier in agriculture. Despite being one atom thick, GN is the strongest material ever tested and its unique mechanical properties made it a favourable candidate to be used as a reinforcement material to enhance the toughness of different composites and therefore a potential application to enhance the mechanical properties of fertilizer granules. Therefore, considering the excellent properties of GN-based materi…
author: Kabiri, Shervin
language: en
keywords: Graphene, slow-release, fertilizer, nutrient carrier, mechanical property, crushing strength
date published: 2018
date modified: 2026-07-24T00:50:39Z
provider: University of Adelaide
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Adelaide

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/2440/120237