Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are not only an alloptrope of carbon but also an important materials in biological sciences.
There are several unique properties of carbon nanotubes.They show extraordinary strength and unique electrical properties. Moreover they work as efficient conductors of heat.
They take their names from their size, since the diameter of a nanotube is on the order of a few nanometers. They are approximately 50,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair. Furthermore, they can be up to several millimeters in length.
Beside these important properties, carbon nanotubes induce plant cell growth. For example, Tomato plant grown in soil supplemented with CNTs produce two times more flowers and fruit compared to plants grown in control soil (Khodakovskaya et al, 2012).
Another experimental data from Tiwari et al. (2013) stated that while carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been shown to dramatically improve germination of some comestible plants, deficiencies in consistency of behavior and reproducibility arise, partially from the variability of the CNTs used. Moreover, same experiment showed that low dose multi wall carbon nanotubes were seen to be beneficial, improving water absorption, plant biomass and the concentrations of the essential Ca, Fe nutrients, opening a potential for possible future commercial agricultural applications.
To conclude, these findings suggest that carbon nanotube technology will be more popular in near future and this materials suggest a potential for the optimizing water transport in arid region agriculture and of improving crop biomass yields from fruit to vegetables.
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