The application of nanotechnology in the field of agriculture has been growing piecemeal; however, it has been very limited only to the use of nanoparticles with respect to the intake, accumulation, and interaction of these in plants specifically in cells, tissues, and soils. Nevertheless, the effect of the mechanism of contribution in plants and sprouts has not been thoroughly studied. In the area of nanotechnology, the research of nanofiber materials is still considerably more limited with respect to the impact on plant metabolism. Even so, it has been observed that the fabrication of nanofibers has many advantages due to simplicity, low cost of production, high porosity, and contact surface. In this review, we will explore some applications and advantages of the use of nanofibers by electrospinning in agricultural applications mainly in growth and protection of the seeds, plants, and soils as well as in the detection of compounds.

This paper is dedicated to study the thin polycrystalline films of semiconductor chalcogenide materials (CdS, CdSe, and PbS) obtained by ammonia-free chemical bath deposition. The obtained material is of polycrystalline nature with crystallite of a size that, from a general point of view, should not result in any noticeable quantum confinement. Nevertheless, we were able to observe blueshift of the fundamental absorption edge and reduced refractive index in comparison with the corresponding bulk materials. Both effects are attributed to the material porosity which is a typical feature of chemical bath deposition technique. The blueshift is caused by quantum confinement in pores, whereas the refractive index variation is the evident result of the density reduction. Quantum mechanical description of the nanopores in semiconductor is given based on the application of even mirror boundary conditions for the solution of the Schrödinger equation; the results of calculations give a reasonable explanation of the experimental data.

The properties of PbS thin films deposited by Successive Ionic Layer Adsorption and Reaction (SILAR) method were analyzed and applied in PbS/CdS heterojuction solar cells. In this study for n-type layer, cadmium sulfide thin films were deposited on transparent conductive oxide (ITO) substrates by Chemical Bath Deposition (CBD) technique followed by deposition of PbS film using different deposition cycles, 15, 20, 30, 40 and 60 to obtain different thicknesses from 90 nm to 658 nm. Morphological, structural and optical properties were investigated. The roughness of the PbS films were found to be in the range of 10–162 nm, depending on the number of cycles. The films of PbS present a band gap value of 0.6 eV. PbS/CdS heterojunctions were studied as solar cells, it was observed that 40 cycles PbS film has a greater photovoltaic conversion efficiency.

II-VI and IV-VI semiconductor films for solar cell applications, namely, CdTe, CdSe, PbSe and PbTe, can be prepared in two-stage deposition process. In this work we illustrate the two-stage process to obtain PbTe films from precursor plumbonacrite films deposited by chemical bath deposition (CBD). In the first stage, plumbonacrite Pb10(CO3)6O(OH)6) films were deposited onto glass substrate by (CBD), using ammonia-free low-temperature process in alkaline aqueous solution with corresponding ion sources. Then, in the second stage, the obtained film was placed in a Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) Hot Wall reactor with gas transportation, where it acted as substrate in a reaction of substitution of non-metallic film component by Te, thus forming PbTe films. The nitrogen flux of 0.25 lt/min was used as transporting gas. The source temperature was adjusted between boiling (Tb) point and melting point (Tm) with the aim to control the flux gas of the source(Tellurium source, Tm=449.51°C,Tb=988°C). The substrate temperature was adjusted to improve the quality of the film. Besides, a two-stage CBD process was also studied, where first a higher band gap semiconductor layer was deposited (CdS) and then a smaller gap material (PbS) was deposited above it. The structural and optical investigation of the films obtained proved their high quality that determines the possibility of utilization them as elements of solar cells, in particular, multi-junction cells. As an example, solar cell of CdS/PbS type was constructed showing quantum efficiency above 25%. The technique as a whole is versatile and relatively cheap, it could be used for preparation of a large variety of semiconductor materials

The introduction of heavy metals into water or soil is a significant global issue affecting environmental health and food security. Potentially toxic elements (PTEs), such as chromium (Cr), arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), mercury (Hg), and lead (Pb), are non-biodegradable and toxic to living organisms. In contrast, essential elements, such as copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), or selenium (Se), can cause harm due to their deficit or excess. The exposure of an organism to such substances increases the concentration of them at a higher level of the trophic chain, a process known as biomagnification. Pollution of farmlands, coasts, or water bodies in agriculture is a major concern. The increase in the use of nanotechnologies, such as nanomaterials in agriculture, has introduced such substances into the environment and into the food chain. The consumption of products that contain PTEs can cause harm to human health, including neurotoxicity, genotoxicity, and several types of cancer. The aim of this research is to present the current advances regarding biomagnification in aquatic and terrestrial food chains of PTEs and metal-based nanomaterials in order to understand the data related to biomagnification, to find the routes of exposure to these substances, and, finally, to establish and monitor the risk assessment for human health.