NANOGRASS – A platform for the development of environmental friendly pesticides

Chemical substances used in agriculture (agrochemicals) have a significant impact on the quality of soil, surface and subsurface water. Their extensive and prolonged use over time causes negative effects on ecosystems.

Nanograss proposes the use of natural nano and micromaterials and food-grade polymers to develop smart agrochemicals with a lower environmental impact (and associated economical advantages). Nanograss is a technological platform, applicable to a broad spectrum of pesticides for which controlling leaching, volatilization and premature degradation is a priority.

The extensive use of pesticides is a common, and often unavoidable, practice in agriculture, but presents numerous drawbacks related to their toxicity and mobility in the environment.
The main environmental problems associated with agrochemicals depend of the characteristics of the specific compound. Ultimately, the most critical products are those characterized by a significant dispersion in the environment (both during the application to crop and later on, when irrigation and rain events disperse them in surface water and groundwater), by a significant toxicity toward humans and other non-target organisms (crops, insects, etc.) and by a high persistency (because scarcely biodegradable and/or photodegradable). On the other hand, some common pesticides, although extremely effective and eventually less toxic that broadly used competitors, have a limited use, since they are too volatile or soluble, and consequently a large quantity of product applied in the field is lost in the environment.
The environmental issues associated to agrochemical products have also obvious economic drawbacks, including the recall from the market, the adoption of limitations on its uses, and the need to develop alternative formulations.

The main applications of this technology are:
– The development of pesticides with lower environmental impact, using common active ingredients and combining them with sustainable biodegradable materials that make them less mobile in the environment;
– The possibility to extend the approach to other typologies of active ingredients/composites used in agriculture, such as fertilizers/soil improvers/bio-active ingredients that need a specific protection and improvement to promote their full-scale application
Nanograss is a technological platform, applicable and adaptable to numerous different active principles and to solve different compound-specific problems.

The Nanograss platform permits the development of pesticide nanoformulation with the following advantages:
– the reduction of volatilization and lisciviation. Reduced leaching may mean, depending on the compound, that a pesticide can be authorized for use in a broader spectrum of conditions (e.g. mobile pesticides may not be authorized on very permeable soils), can be applied at lower doses (since less compound is lost without targeting the pests) or have a longer permanence in soil (thus avoiding, for some compounds, frequent application).
– the improvement of the delivery of poorly soluble AIs, or conversely the control and retardation of soluble AIs release;
– the use of greener pesticides of natural origin, less toxic (at least to humans) than the synthetic corresponding products, whose industrial application is often limited due to their inherent fast degradation.