Postharvest disease inhibition in fruit by synthesis and characterization of chitosan iron oxide nanoparticles

Abstract Economic and ecofriendly surface modification of nanoparticles is a consistent challenge for agricultural purposes. Application of surface modified greatly reduces the risks of postharvest diseases and weight loss during storage. For this purpose, chitosan coated iron oxide nanoparticles (CH–Fe2O3 NPs) found to be useful due to the presence of basal metallic core and organic functional groups on the surface. The present study is based on one step synthesis of CH–Fe2O3 NPs to control emerging diseases and weight loss on postharvest peach fruit. Moreover, we characterized these synthesized NPs through Ultraviolet visible (UV–Vis) spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction pattern (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Characterization results showed synthesized NPs with 218 absorption band, rhombohedral crystalline nature, presence of various organic functional groups, spherical rod shape structure ranging from 20 to 30 nm. We isolated and identified a new fungal species (Rhizopus stolonifer), which causes the postharvest soft rot disease in peach fruit leading to fruit damage and weight loss. We found that 1% CH–Fe2O3 NPs showed significant difference as compared to 0.50% synthetic fungicide by effectively inhibiting microbial growth on fruit surface and reduced weight loss. We concluded that surface engineered NPs can be promising fungicide to control emerging diseases and controlling food loss.