【NHF Forum No.155】Feeding the World: Why Materials Scientists are Important Players for Sustainable Agriculture

报 告 人：Caue Ribeiro 教授， Embrapa (Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation)

报告题目：Feeding the World: Why Materials Scientists are Important Players for Sustainable Agriculture

时     间：2018年7月9日（周一）15:00-17:00

地     点：国家纳米科学中心  南楼二层中会议室

邀 请 人：贺  涛  研究员

报告摘要：

The increase in world population, associated to the better economic conditions in developing countries, have been pressing the food production in the last years. Simultaneously, the concerns about climate change, land occupation, sustainable use of land and water, are limiting the expansion of agriculture to newer areas, meaning that productivity increase is the only answer for the higher demand. Despite many researchers are focusing in more adapted seeds or high productivity crops, an essential part of the agricultural sustainability is fertilization, which frequently corresponds to 50-60% of the production net cost. Therefore we have proposed a strategy to produce composite fertilizers where the matrix is composed by nutrients, i.e., all the constituents play a nutritional role for plants. This strategy allows, for instance, the controlled delivery of phosphate from hydroxyapatite nanoparticles dispersed in a nitrogen-rich matrix (even urea or partially polymerized urea). Recently, we noticed that similar strategies are applicable to sulfur (S), often neglected about its importance as nutrient. The production of S-rich polymeric matrices, using elemental S and biopolymers, provide means for multiple nutrient administrations, by integrating these nutrient matrices to mineral phosphates as dispersed nanoparticles as composites. This structure was shown as very adequate for microorganism colonization (e.g. A. niger), which accelerates the S oxidation to sulfates (which are properly absorbed by plants) while imposes a local acidification solubilizing the mineral phosphates to absorbable species. This complex system can be extend to other structures, keeping very high total nutrient contents (higher that 30% wt) and easy processing steps, since these features allows the fertilizer production by high-output techniques such as extrusion.

报告人简历：

Caue Ribeiro is Senior Researcher at Embrapa (Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation). He is materials engineer (Federal University at Sao Carlos, UFSCar, Brazil, 1999) and PhD in Physical Chemistry (UFSCar, 2005). After a period in the private sector, he joined Embrapa as Full Researcher in Instrumentation Center in 2007. From 2015 to 2017 he serve as Deputy Head of Technology Transference, responsible for institutional relationship to private sector, involving prospection of partners interested in patent transfer, agreements for joint research, intellectual property, market analyses and contracts for funding research by private companies. Currently he is the coordinator of Agronano Network – a research network for nanotechnological applications in agriculture, involving about 150 researchers in Brazil and abroad (https://www.embrapa.br/nano). His primary research interests include the development of synthesis routes to produce heterogeneous catalysts (mainly inorganic nanoparticles) for water decontamination and energy production, and development of nanocomposites for slow/controlled release in agriculture. He have published > 140 papers, with > 2,800 citations (H-index 29). In 2017 he received the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship as Experienced Researcher, to start in 2018/2019 as Visiting Researcher in Forschungszentrum Jülich (Germany). In 2018 he received the CAS President's International Fellowship Initiative (PIFI) for Visiting Scientists, to do research in the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology (NCNST) during July/August 2018 hosted by Prof. Dr. Tao He.

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