Springer Magnetic Nanostructures: Environmental and Agricultural Applications (Nanotechnology in the Life Sciences)

Recently, magnetic nanostructures have gained a remarkable interest for basic research and applied studies. Because of their low cost and ease of manufacture and modification, they have great potential for agricultural and environmental applications. The use of magnetic nanostructures has been proven in a wide range of fields including catalysis, biotechnology, biomedicine, magnetic resonance imaging, agriculture, biosensors, and removal of environmental pollutants, among others.   This book includes 16 chapters of collected knowledge, discoveries, and applications in agriculture, soil remediation, and water treatment. It describes the role of nano-agriculture with regard to food security and discusses environmental and agricultural protection concerns. It further offers potential applications of magnetic nanomaterials in the agriculture and food sectors, such as the development of sensors, environment monitoring for wastewater treatment and the remediation of contaminated soils. Increasing crop yield through the use of nanopesticides or nanofertilizers and biosecurity using sensors for detecting pathogens along the entire food chain are discussed as well.  This book also brings together various sources of expertise on different aspects magnetic nanostructure application in the agri-food sector and environment remediation. Magnetic nanostructures also have great potential in biotechnological processes, as they can be utilized as a carrier for enzymes during different biocatalytic transformations. Novel magnetic nanomaterials can be used for detection and separation of pesticides from environmental and biological samples. The excellent adsorption capacity of the modified magnetic nanoadsorbents together with other advantages such as reusability, easy separation, environmentally friendly composition, and freedom of interferences of alkaline earth metal ions make them suitable adsorbents for removal of heavy metal ions from environmental and industrial wastes. One of the most important environmental applications of magnetic nanostructures has been in the treatment of water, whether in the remediation of groundwater or through the magnetic separation and/or sensing of contaminants present in various aqueous systems.   The integrated combination of these 16 chapters, written by experts with considerable experience in their area of research, provides a comprehensive overview on the synthesis, characterization, application, environmental processing, and agriculture of engineered magnetic nanostructures. Its comprehensive coverage discusses how nanostructure materials interact in plants as well as their potential and useful applications. About the Author Kamel Abd-Elsalam, Ph.D. is a head researcher at Plant Pathology Research Institute, Agricultural Research Center, Giza, Egypt. Dr. Kamel’s research interests include developing, improving and deploying plant biosecurity diagnostic tools, understanding and exploiting fungal pathogen genomes and developing eco-friendly hybrid nanomaterials for controlling toxicogenic fungi and plant diseases. He has published 8 book chapters, 2 books, 1 translated book and more than 120 research articles in international peer-reviewed journals including Fungal Diversity, Fungal Biology, FEMS Review Microbiology, PLOS One and PLOS Genetics. Dr. Kamel has also served as molecular mycologist for 5 years in the Department Botany and Microbiology Department, College of Science, King Saud University, Saudi Arabia. He received the Federation of Arab Scientific Research Councils Prize for distinguished scientific research in biotechnology (fungal genomics) during 2014 (first ranking). Dr. Kamel has pursued his Ph.D. in Molecular Plant Pathology from Christian Alberchts University of Kiel (Germany) and Suez Canal University (Egypt) and was awarded postdoctoral fellowship from Christian Alberchts University of Kiel in 2008. Dr. Kamel served as Visiting Associate Professor