In addition to fertilizers, pesticides are another major component of agrochemicals for agriculture. However, public concerns exist regarding the biosafety and pollution issues of traditional pesticides due to their easy leaching, volatilization, and loss properties
[50]. Excessive use of pesticides has also caused many problems that need to be addressed urgently, such as plant disease resistance, destruction of soil biodiversity, and adverse effects on human health and the environment
[51]. Therefore, more efficient and environmentally friendly solutions regarding the use of pesticides are encouraged. Nano-pesticides (including nano-insecticides, nano-herbicides, and nano-fungicides) can reduce volatilization and degradation of pesticides, improve utilization efficiency, reduce the use of pesticides, and alleviate environmental risks
[52,53][52][53]. In addition to adsorbing harmful organic matter to reduce the solubility and bioavailability of organic matter, CNMs are promising materials that can be used as a pesticide carrier to improve the utilization efficiency of pesticides
[54,55,56,57][54][55][56][57]. Currently, due to the unique physical and chemical properties mentioned above, GO is one of the most widely used carriers in the field of nano-pesticides. For example, rGO has the advantages of high pesticide adsorption capacity (up to 1200 mg/g for chloropyrifos), low toxicity, good antibacterial performance, insensitivity to pH value change, and the ability to be reused
[57]. GO loaded with red spider insecticide can be completely adsorbed on the surface of the red spider and have a strong toxic effect
[58]. GO can carry different types of pesticides through surface modification. Tong et al. (2018) used polydopamine-modified GO as the carrier of water-soluble pesticides, which alleviated the issue of easy loss of water-soluble pesticides, enabled controlled release of pesticides, enhanced the adhesion between pesticides and plants, and thus improved the utilization efficiency
[59]. Hydrophobic pesticides can be loaded by polylactic acid-modified GO
[60]. However, GO also has disadvantages, such as low stability under acidic solution
[61]. Song et al. (2019) developed nano-biochar as the carrier of emamectin benzoate, and used carboxymethyl chitosan as the pH-responsive switch to control the delivery and release of emamectin benzoate. As a result, the water solubility, dispersion stability, and UV resistance of the delivery system were significantly improved, ensuring its long-term control of pests
[62]. In addition to GO, CNTs can also be used as a sustained-release system for pesticides. For example, MWCNTs grafted with polycitric acid (PCA) can deliver zineb, an antifungal pesticide. Compared with zineb in bulk, the novel CNT-PCA-Zineb hybrid material has better water solubility, higher stability, and stronger toxicity to Alternaria
[63].
Overall, CNMs are good candidates to deliver agrochemicals into plants with better efficiency than conventional fertilizers and pesticides. However, there is an urgent need to understand how plants respond to their exposure. Moreover, the addition of CNMs has increased the complexity of the agro-ecosystem; whether they represent a new pollutant or a new opportunity is discussed in detail by Kah
[64]. With regard to the future of nano-agrochemicals, it is necessary to fully consider the views in many fields of science, industry, and regulation, so that the agrochemicals sector can make use of nanotechnology and reduce its negative impact on human beings and the environment as much as possible.
3.2. Use of CNMs to Deliver Functional Genetic Materials
To feed an expected population of over 9 billion in 2050, the breeding of stress-tolerant species is of importance to ensure the food supply in the near future. At present, the commonly used transformation methods in plants, such as gene gun bombardment and agrobacterium-mediated transformation, have problems such as restriction of the host type, restriction of transformation efficiency by the cell wall, damage to the plant tissue, and pathogenicity
[65]. In recent years, nano-enabled transgenic events have shown convincing progress. Among the nanomaterials used, carbon nanotubes and carbon dots are important. Compared with agrobacterium-mediated gene transformation, nanomaterials can deliver nucleic acids faster. In addition, some auto-fluorescent CNMs, such as CDs, can form relatively small complexes with nucleic acids and deliver the nucleic acids into cells, and track the complexes directly and conveniently
[65,66,67][65][66][67]. A PEI-modified CD-siRNA delivery system has been developed to deliver and silence target genes in tobacco and tomato
[68]. In addition to CDs, CNTs are the most widely tested carriers for nano-enabled transgenic events. Demirer et al. (2019) established a method for delivering plasmid DNA with PEI-modified SWCNTs, which were able to effectively deliver plasmid DNA to wheat and cotton without transgene integration, and showing highly expressed YFP protein
[69]. Further studies showed that SWCNTs can also deliver siRNA to mature plant leaves to achieve instantaneous gene silencing, with a gene knockout efficiency as high as 95%
[70]. In addition, SWCNTs modified with chitosan can achieve chloroplast genetic transformation without external biological or chemical assistance, which is much cheaper and simpler than conventional methods
[71]. Researchers also developed a system of SWCNTs and conventional cell-shuttle peptides to improve the efficiency of targeted peptide–plasmid transformation
[72]. Overall, CNMs play an important role in nano-enabled transgenic events and may be good candidate for targeted delivery of functional materials. However, the plant transformation method based on CNMs is still at the embryonic stage and needs to be further explored.
4. CNMs as a Light Converter for Augmenting Plant Photosynthesis
Plants convert solar energy into chemical energy through chloroplast photosynthesis
[73,74][73][74]. However, the utilization rate of sunlight by chloroplasts is less than 10%, and is limited to the visible spectral range (400–700 nm), mainly in the blue and red regions
[75,76][75][76]. UV and nIR lights are not utilized for plant photosynthesis. Therefore, to expand the light spectrum for plant photosynthesis, developing high-performance light conversion materials with blue and red broadband emissions to make maximum use of solar energy may be a feasible approach
[77,78,79,80][77][78][79][80].
4.1. CNMs as a Down-Conversion Light Converter
UV light (200–400 nm) induces the generation of reactive oxygen species in plants and negatively affects agricultural production
[81]. In order to increase plant photosynthesis, various light-trapping nanomaterials have been used to convert poorly absorbed ultraviolet light into highly absorbed visible light to improve the conversion efficiency of the light used by chloroplasts
[82]. Due to their stable emission and adjustability of the photoluminescence spectrum, CNMs are widely used as down-conversion nanomaterials (DCNMs) to convert ultraviolet (UV) light into photosynthetic active radiation
[83,84,85,86,87][83][84][85][86][87]. Most CDs synthesized at present can emit blue fluorescence under UV excitation
[88,89,90][88][89][90]. Vinyl alcohol-encapsulated CDs converted UV to blue light and enhanced photosynthetic efficiency in lettuce
[91]. Amine-functionalized CDs can be strongly conjugated on chloroplast surfaces and promote photosynthesis by accelerating the conversion of solar energy
[92]. Li et al. (2018) designed a new dual-wavelength luminescent CD that exhibits strong absorption in the UV light region and emits light that exactly matches the chloroplast absorption spectrum (blue and red light)
[93]. The adenosine triphosphate produced by the hybrid photosystem (chloroplast coating with CDs) in vitro is 2.8 times that of the chloroplast itself. In the in vivo experiments, the electron transfer rate of the Rome lettuce leaves coated with CDs increased by 25% at the maximum. It should be noted that the impact of CDs on plant photosynthesis may be affected by the quantum yield. For example, chloroplasts can only use the blue fluorescence re-emitted by CDs with medium QY (46.42%) to enhance photosynthesis, but not low and high quantum yield CDs
[94]. This suggests that properties such as the emission intensity, quantum yield, and emission light spectrum of CNMs used for converting UV to visible light should be properly designed before being applied to plants. Moreover, as a UV-visible light color converter, CDs can also be applied to plastic films and LEDs for greenhouse to promote plant growth
[95,96,97,98][95][96][97][98].
4.2. CNMs as an Up-Conversion Light Converter
nIR light accounts for about 52% of the solar spectrum, but cannot be used by plants, resulting in a serious waste of solar light resources
[99]. Up-conversion nanomaterials (UCNMs) can convert nIR light to visible light that can be utilized by plants. The conversion of nIR to visible light by UCNMs is a nonlinear optical process, which absorbs two or more low-energy photons from nIR light and converts them into high-energy photons having a shorter wavelength and stronger energy via energy transfer, excited state absorption, or multiphoton absorption
[100]. Carbon nanomaterials can work with up-conversion optical materials to promote nIR light conversion to enhance plant photosynthesis
[101,102][101][102]. Doping CDs into the up-conversion material NaYF4: Yb, Er, CDs can shift the green emission of NaYF4: Yb, Er to red light
[103]. Mung beans sprayed with NaYF4: Yb, Er@CD nanocomposite showed a significantly increased photosynthetic rate
[103]. It is argued that CNMs can also be used as up-conversion nanomaterials (UCNMs). However, to date, CNMs as UCNMs have rarely been directly applied to the improvement in plant photosynthetic efficiency.
In summary, the use of CNMs to convert UV and nIR to visible light may be a potential means to augment plant photosynthesis. However, to date, the leaf and/or root application of CNMs as light conversion materials to improve plant growth is still mainly at the proof-of-concept stage. Moreover, to facilitate the use of CNMs as a light converter in plants, addition factors need to be considered, such as (1) the biocompatibility, long-term safety, and toxicity of light converting CNMs in plants; (2) the light conversion efficiency; and (3) the heat generated during CNM-enabled light conversion in plants. For example, after nIR dyes are attached to the surface of lanthanide-doped UCNPs, the up-conversion efficiency is more than 30,000 times higher than that of UCNPs alone
[104]. Moreover, some optical nanomaterials, such as carbon nanohorns (CNHs) and gold nanorods (AuNRs), generate local heat through photothermal conversion under nIR laser irradiation
[105,106][105][106].