Highly Ecofriendly Inorganic Pesticide Based on TiO2 Incorporated with Nano-Carbon Composites for Phytophthora palmivora Fungus Disinfection

Muhammad Nurdin; Icheu Dini Widia Sari; Mardhatillah Mardhatillah; N Herdianto; Dwiprayogo Wibowo; Maulidiyah Maulidiyah; Musadar Mappasomba; Ansharullah Ansharullah; Catherina Bijang

doi:10.1007/s12088-023-01076-7

Highly Ecofriendly Inorganic Pesticide Based on TiO₂ Incorporated with Nano-Carbon Composites for Phytophthora palmivora Fungus Disinfection

Indian J Microbiol. 2023 Jun;63(2):216-221. doi: 10.1007/s12088-023-01076-7. Epub 2023 May 30.

Authors

Muhammad Nurdin¹, Icheu Dini Widia Sari¹, Mardhatillah Mardhatillah¹, N Herdianto¹, Dwiprayogo Wibowo², Maulidiyah Maulidiyah¹, Musadar Mappasomba³, Ansharullah Ansharullah³, Catherina Bijang⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Universitas Halu Oleo, Kendari, Southeast Sulawesi 93231 Indonesia.
² Present Address: Department of Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Muhammadiyah Kendari, Kendari, Southeast Sulawesi 93117 Indonesia.
³ Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Universitas Halu Oleo, Kendari, Southeast Sulawesi 93231 Indonesia.
⁴ Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Universitas Pattimura, Ambon, Maluku 97233 Indonesia.

Abstract

Crop destruction organisms are an essential factor hindering cocoa plants' production yield. It is the biggest problem for cocoa farmers to resolve and reduce the impact of the P. palmivora fungus on cocoa pods. Herein, this study presents the optimization of inorganic pesticides based on nano-carbon self-doped TiO₂ (C/TiO₂) nanocomposites capable of disinfecting broad-spectrum P. palmivora microorganisms for the practical application of photodisinfection technology. C/TiO₂ nanocomposite-based inorganic pesticide has been prepared by sol-gel method to produce nanospray and planted in media containing P. palmivora fungus. To identify the various composition of the C/TiO₂ nanospray, they were evaluated by FTIR spectroscopy to observe the functional groups of the nano-carbon and TiO₂, which clearly contained -OH (3446-3448 cm^-1), C≡C (2366-2370 cm^-1), C=O (1797-1799 cm^-1), C-H (1425 cm^-1), C-O (1163-1203 cm^-1), C-H (875-877 cm^-1), and Ti-O (875-877 cm^-1) groups. Some researchers have reported that nano-carbon significantly changes the band gap energy of TiO₂ under visible light and can also be active under dark conditions. This statement is relevant to our experimental results that 0.3% C/TiO₂ nanocomposites can inhibit the fungus P. palmivora with a percentage inhibition value of 72.7%. However, the high-performance efficiency proved strong when subjected to visible light irradiation with an inhibition value of 98.6%. Our results indicate that C/TiO₂ nanocomposites have great potential in agricultural plant pathogen disinfection.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12088-023-01076-7.

Keywords: Carbon; Cocoa; P. palmivora; Pesticides; TiO2.

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