Stimuli-responsive pesticide carriers based on porous nanomaterials: A review

Pesticides, as important inputs in modern agriculture, are widely used to improve crop yield and suppress diseases and pests for global food security. However, most traditional pesticides applied in the field present some adverse effects involving poor dispersibility, unstability, and low utilization rate. Moreover, the overuse of pesticides causes serious environmental pollution and food safety risks. To address these issues, the stimuli-responsive nanopesticides designed by nanoencapsulation techniques have been gained increasing interest recently. The stimuli-responsive nanopesticides can release sufficient active ingredients on-demand according to environmental and biological trigger, which improve pesticides effectiveness and environment and food safety. The porous nanomaterials (PNMs) have been recently received particular attention in nanocarrier designed for pesticides release owing to their high loading capacity, adjustable porosity, and easy surface modification. This review focuses on the current literatures in the last five years on PNMs used to fabricate stimulus-responsive nanopesticides. After briefly introducing the structure and characteristics of PNMs, the synthetic methods and the applications of various PNMs commonly used in nanopesticides were summarized. Emphatically, the stimuli-responsive PNMs were highlighted, and the response and release mechanism were further deliberated. Finally, the main challenges and future prospects in this research field were proposed.