Polyphenol-Inspired Materials for Agricultural Applications

Securing global food production while reducing environmental burdens demands materials that combine high nutrient use efficiency with sustainability. Polyphenols, a class of natural plant-derived molecules, provide redox activity, multidentate interactions, and strong interfacial adhesion, making them versatile building blocks for bio-derived agricultural systems. This review summarizes recent advances in the molecular design and multifunctional applications of polyphenol-inspired materials across diverse agriculture sectors, including soil remediation, seed coating, nutrient delivery, crop protection, sensing, nitrification inhibition, and food preservation. It focuses on interfacial assembly, structure-property relationships, and environmental interactions of polyphenol-enabled materials, which collectively govern their performance from laboratory tests to field conditions. Key challenges in current agricultural practice-including low precision and high labor dependence, environmental degradation and ecological imbalance, instability under extreme environmental conditions, and low economic efficiency and unsustainability-are also discussed. Finally, future directions centered on precision and smart agriculture, ecosystem protection, climate-resilient plant interfaces, and circular bioeconomy are outlined. This review presents a comprehensive framework that connects molecular innovation to system-level applications, offering a roadmap for future research and the deployment of polyphenols in agriculture.