Metal-organic framework as an emerging material: A novel plant growth stimulant. a novel plant growth stimulant.

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have drawn wide attention owing to their large specific surface area, porosity, and tunable framework structures. Thus, they are comprehensively applied for adsorption, energy, sensors, biomedical drug delivery, catalysis, and agriculture. MOFs represent novel porous materials with high surface areas and tunable pore sizes and compositions. Significantly, they have made an excellent contribution to improve stability and catalytic activity. MOFs have great potential ability for agricultural application because they can easily be encapsulated and because of their wide pore size distribution. They can absorb particular nutrients, fertilizers, and pesticides or insecticides and release them at a particular targeted site to act as targeted drug delivery. This property has been used to fabricate a smart delivery system based on MOFs. Also, crop growth and production can be enhanced by employing the properties of MOFs. This chapter focuses mainly on the various synthesis routes of MOFs and their utility for plant growth and development, as well as the crop protection against various plant diseases.