Manuscript Abstract

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS AND IMPACT OF VARIOUS ENTOMOTOXIC NANOPARTICLES AGAINST Sitophilus oryzae
Ch. Muhammad Shahid Hanif, Hafiz Muhammad Aatif, Muhammad Zeeshan Mansha, Zahid Mahmood Sarwar, Kamran Ikram, Qamar uz Zaman, Ibrahim Al-Ashkar, Muhammad Kamran, El-Sabagh Ayman

Ch. M. S. Hanif1, H. M. Aatif2, M. Z. Mansha3, Z. M. Sarwar1, K. Ikram4, Q. U. Zaman5*, I. Al-Ashkar6, M. Kamran7 and El-Sabagh Ayman8

1Department of Entomology, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan 60800, Pakistan

2Department of Plant Pathology, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan 60800, Pakistan

3Department of Plant Pathology, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences and Technology (FAS&T), University of Layyah, 31200, Punjab, Pakistan

4Department of Agricultural Engineering, Khwaja Fareed University of Engineering and Information Technology, Rahim Yar Khan, 64200, Punjab, Pakistan

5Department of Environmental Sciences, The University of Lahore, Lahore 54000, Pakistan

6Plant Production Department, College of Food and Agriculture Sciences, King Saud University, P.O. Box 2460, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia

7College of Pastoral Agriculture Science and Technology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China

8Department of Field Crops, Faculty of Agriculture, Siirt University, Siirt, Turkey

Corresponding Author: qamar.zaman1@envs.uol.edu.pk
Page Number(s): 662-668
Published Online First: January 28, 2026
Publication Date: May 05, 2026
ABSTRACT

Rice, an important cereal crop of Pakistan suffers 10 to 18% loss each year during harvesting, threshing, transportation, and storage. Several insect pests attack the grains during storage, but Sitophilus oryzae is one of the most destructive insect pests of rice grains, which causes substantial losses under warm climatic conditions. Conventional control practices such as use of chemical insecticides and fumigants have led to the resistance development in storage insect pests. Moreover, they also exert hazardous effects on human health and environment. This study evaluated the entomotoxic potential of zinc oxide (ZnO), titanium dioxide (TiO₂), and aluminum oxide (Al₂O₃) nanoparticles (NPs) against adult Sitophilus oryzae under controlled laboratory conditions. Custom-synthesized NPs with distinct surface properties viz., hydrophilic, hydrophobic, and lipophilic were tested at three concentrations (0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 g kg⁻¹ of rice grains), alongside untreated controls. The experiment was laid out in a completely randomized design (CRD) following a factorial arrangement, with each treatment replicated five times. After four days of aluminum oxide (1 g kg⁻¹) application, 90% of mortality of S. oryzae was recorded, while titanium oxide and zinc oxide showed similar results (85-90% mortality) with 2 g kg⁻¹ dose rate after 14 days of application. In short, it is preferred to use titanium oxide and zinc oxide than aluminum oxide which exhibits hazardous impacts on stored grains. Furthermore, titanium oxide and zinc oxide also have antimicrobial properties and can protect the stored grains from both insect pests as well as infection caused by microbes.

Keywords: Nano particles, Sitophilus oryzae, DE, Biosafety, residual toxicity
Open Access: This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).


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