Green agriculture enabled by versatile metal-organic frameworks: A review

Modern agriculture faces unprecedented challenges: A growing global population, limited arable land, freshwater scarcity, and inefficient agrochemical use have triggered severe environmental degradation. Pollutants including pesticides, heavy metals, microplastics, antibiotics, nutrient runoff, and greenhouse gases threaten ecosystem stability, food security, and human health. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), with their tunable structures, high porosity, and versatile functionality, emerge as promising materials to address these issues. This review comprehensively summarizes recent advances in MOFs-based solutions for agriculture. It covers green synthesis strategies to enhance structural stability and promote circular economy principles. Applications span three primary domains: pollutant remediation, sustainable technologies (e.g., atmospheric water harvesting, seawater desalination, and green ammonia synthesis), and smart agricultural systems. The latter enables controlled agrochemical release and real-time sensing and monitoring. Finally, challenges - such as high costs, biosafety concerns, and scalability limitations - are discussed, alongside forward-looking perspectives including AI-assisted design, improved recyclability, scalable production, and multifunctional integration toward green and smart agriculture.