Recently, Prof. Wang Zhenying’s team from Institute of Plant Protection, CAAS has published their research results as a front-cover paper entitled “Graphene oxide as a multifunctional synergist of insecticides against Lepidopteran insect” on Environmental Science: Nano, a prestigious journal affiliated with the Royal Society of Chemistry. This work demonstrated that graphene oxide (GO) was innovatively used as a synergist of insecticides, which significantly improved the biological activity of insecticides.

GO is a type of carbon-based nano-material, which has been applied in medicine, environmental science and other fields. However, its application in plant protection has rarely been reported. In this study, three insecticides, imidacloprid, β-cyfluthrin and monosultap, were loaded onto the surface of GO by electrostatic adsorption, which significantly enhanced the efficacy of the insecticides. Meanwhile, GO caused ‘physical damages’ to the cuticle of insects，which provided a new channel for the penetration of insecticides.

This research was funded by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2017YFD0201802) and China Agriculture Research System (CARS-02). More information can be found through the link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/C8EN00902C.

by Wang Zhenying (zywang@ippcaas.cn)