Biological control agents are useful components in the enhancement of plant disease resistance and improvement of soil properties. Effect of biological control agents (BCAs) as a disease control method in plants is hampered by their vulnerability to environmental and edaphic conditions. This study entailed the use of chitosan-silica nanocomposites for delivery of BCAs. Effect of BCAs-nanocompos...

Over the past few years, considerable attention has been focused on carrageenan based bionanocomposites due to their multifaceted properties like biodegradability, biocompatibility, and nontoxicity. Moreover, these composites can be tailored according to the desired purpose by using different nanofillers. The role of ferromagnetic nanoparticles in drug delivery is also discussed here in detail....

Montmorillonite (SWy-2)-chitosan bionanocomposites (SW-CH) were prepared following different methodologies, characterized, and assayed as adsorbents of the herbicide clopyralid (3,6-dichloropyridine-2-carboxylic acid) in aqueous solution and soil/water suspensions, to assess the potential of the materials to prevent and remediate soil and water contamination by anionic pesticides. The SW-CH bio...

Polylactide (PLA) is the oldest and potentially one of the most interesting and useful biodegradable man-made polymers because of its renewable origin, controlled synthesis, good mechanical properties, and inherent biocompatibility. The blending of PLA with functional nanoparticles can yield a new class of hybrid materials, commonly known as bionanocomposites, where 1-5% nanoparticles by volume...

Functional bionanocomposites based on two layered silicates, the commercial montmorillonite known as Cloisite®Na and a natural bentonite from Algeria, were prepared by intercalation of cationic starch, synthesized with two different degrees of substitution, 0.85 and 0.55. After characterization of the prepared bionanocomposites by XRD and zeta potential measurements, batch studies were conducte...

This chapter gives an introduction on the general aspects of cellulose, natural rubber and their bionanocomposites. A brief literature review on what has been done so far on the cellulose, natural rubber nanocomposites research area is also included in this chapter. This chapter also describes the structure, properties and characterization of cellulose as a biobased nanomaterial in natural rubber.

The term bionanocomposites was introduced several years ago, to define an emerging class of biohybrid materials, resulting from the combination of biopolymers such as polysaccharides, proteins, nucleic acids, etc. with inorganic solids at the nanometric scale [1] and [2]. Such inorganic fraction consists of finely divided solids, spanning from clays to phosphates or carbonates, whose origin can...

The concept of smart food packaging based on biosensors and biopolymer-based nanocomposites has been attracting more interest to the industrial community because concerns quality safety. A biosensor with a scope enable real-time monitoring microbial breakdown products packaged foods. Biopolymer-based (named bionanocomposites) have extensively studied over past few decades due their excellent me...

Magnetic (FePt) and nonmagnetic (Au) nanoparticles were used to assemble ferritin into near-monodisperse bionanocomposites featuring regular interparticle spacing. The FePt/ferritin assemblies are integrated magnetic materials with ferritin providing added magnetic volume fraction to the magnetic nanocomposite. These assemblies differ from either of their constituent particles in terms of block...

The quality of life of patients with chronic wounds can be extremely poor and, therefore, over the past decades, great efforts have been made to develop efficient strategies to improve the healing process and the social impact associated with these conditions. Cell based therapy, as a modern tissue engineering strategy, involves the design of 3D cell-scaffold bioconstructs obtained by preseedin...