The effects of titanium oxide nano-particles on Oryza sativa L., rice plant

Nowadays nanoparticle technology is used on a large scale in industry. These compounds have a number of toxic effects from which one must take care to avoid side effects. Titanium oxide nanoparticle, (nano TiO2), is one such material. These materials are of interest because of their photocatalytic characteristics. They are being used in sanitary materials and agricultural pesticides and herbicides. The present study, deals with the effects of nano TiO2 on the environment. It also takes into consideration the rice plant as a model and surveys the effects of different concentrations of nano TiO2 on different part of rice plant. In addition, it studies the possible phenotype effects of nano TiO2 onto rice plants. For this purpose, rice was cultivated in N6 media containing nano TiO2 with different concentrations, i.e., 10, 30, 60, 100, 200, 400, 800, and 1000 μg/mL they cultivated for 2 weeks in a cycle of 16 hours of light and 8 hours of darkness at the humidity of 60%. Rice plants dried for 72 hours at 60 °C. Thereafter they powdered and digested using acidic mixture. The digested solutions were analyzed using an ICP to study the amount of Ti absorbed into root and air organs of the rice plant was studied. In addition the penetration, absorption and presence of nano TiO2 in different part of plant were monitored using Transmission electron microscopy, TEM. It seems that both modification agent decrement and time increment increases the particle size and aggregation/agglomeration. With a size increase, the maximum UV absorption will shift and DLS homogeneity decreased. Copyright © 2016 American Scientific Publishers.