From Stress Resilience to Food Chemistry: Nanomaterial-Mediated Preservation of Crop Nutritional Quality under Climate Change

Abstract

Climate warming threatens food quality as well as crop productivity by accelerating protein degradation, micronutrient dilution, and shifts in functional metabolites in edible tissues. Engineered nanomaterials are assessed here for their capacity to preserve crop nutritional composition under heat and drought from a food chemistry perspective. Available evidence links silicon, selenium, cerium oxide, carbon dots, and silver nanomaterials to harvest organ end points, including grain storage-protein fractions, mineral accumulation and speciation, fruit phenolics, anthocyanins, carotenoids, sugars, and antioxidant capacity. Current studies show that nanomaterials can improve selected compositional traits by buffering oxidative stress, stabilizing photosynthesis, regulating osmotic and ionic balances, and modulating nutrient transport. However, most evidence remains concentration-based, with limited resolution of protein assembly, mineral chemical forms, metabolite structures, bioaccessibility, and residue transformations. Nanoenabled crop protection should integrate material identity, delivery route, in-planta transport, harvest organ chemistry, postharvest persistence, and dietary exposure to support nutritional efficacy and food safety.