Title : Environmental catalysis
Abstract:
The use of catalysts as part of environmental catalysis delivers both pollution reduction and sustainability improvement for chemical and industrial production systems. Environmental catalysts prove essential for resolving the problems of chemicals in fields for the plant growth. The productivity of agricultural fields relies equally on biotic elements (pathogens, pests and wounding alongside anthropogenic activities and more) and abiotic elements (sun exposure and herbicides and wind among other external conditions). Plants face damaging effects from reactive oxygen species in stressful conditions which slow growth through lipid membrane, protein, nucleic acid and photosynthetic pigment oxidation. Soil microbes representing plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) and mycorrhizal fungi enhance the growth performance and crop productivity under all types of stress conditions. The organisms use straight and roundabout ways to boost plant growth. The direct mechanisms of PGPR include phosphate and potassium solubilization, siderophore, phytohormone and exopolysaccharide production, nitrogen fixation, and rhizoremediation while the indirect mechanisms encompass volatile organic compounds, protective enzymes and antistress metabolites, induced systemic resistance, antibiosis etc. The crop production depends on multiple abiotic and biotic elements and plant-specific genetic potential beside those factors. Pests inflict 20%–40% worth of annual crop production losses throughout the globe as per FAO statistics. Synthetic pesticides together with fungicides and insecticides and herbicides have proven effective against bacteria fungi nematodes, mites, insects, weeds but they alter soil properties while disrupting helpful insect lifecycles and generate harmful health effects and remain long-term and require multiple applications. The practice of physical control primarily relies on cultivation methods with open field burning but it both reduces pest activity and disease occurrences while altering soil productivity and environmental conditions. Instead of biocontrol agents use natural or modified organisms (bacteria, fungi, etc.) together with novel gene products to implement plant disease and pathogen management without affecting yield amounts. These biocontrol agents offer year-round protection at affordable prices while remaining harmless to plants and being environmentally friendly and easy to cultivate or produce and reproduce and manage in addition to boosting crop production and functioning with bio-fertilizers. Biocontrol agents exert their activity through two mechanisms: they use direct antagonism processes like antibiosis and hyper parasitism and additional indirect processes such as competition and induced resistance. The development of different biocontrol agents needs meticulous collaborative research to make sure they become sustainable in agriculture while providing food security to millions worldwide.
