A dual stimuli-responsive and safer controlled release platform of pesticide through constructing UiO-66-based alginate hydrogel
Pu Feng, Guohuan Huang, Chaoran Fan, Yanming Li, Chuanhui Xu, Lihua Fu, Baofeng Lin
Abstract
Agricultural chemical residue in the environment is one of the biggest concerns for biosafety and human health worldwide. Here, we develop a carrier for pesticides by the chemical combination of UiO-66 and sodium alginate (Alg). When clothianidin (CTD) was encapsulated in UiO-66/Alg, they showed the ability to act as controlled-release pesticides with double stimuli-responsive. Although only 62.74% of CTD was released at 27 °C in 144 h, 93.52% was released at 45 °C at the same time, and the release could be tuned by adding phosphate at the time of greatest requirement. Moreover, the UV-irradiating stability of CTD in UiO-66/Alg was >3.5 times greater than for free CTD, which combined with the outstanding biosafety of UiO-66/Alg-CTD illustrates its potential for development as a bio-friendly, stable and intelligent carrier of pesticides to improve the utilization efficiency of pesticides.