The materials at the heart of the project are called Cello-MOFs, a combination of nanocellulose and metal-organic frameworks. Nanocellulose refers to plant-based fibers extracted from wood and agricultural biomass that are measured in nanometers, thousands of times thinner than a human hair. Despite their tiny scale, these fibers are remarkably strong, flexible, and abundant, since they can be derived from renewable forestry and agricultural resources. Metal-organic frameworks, often abbreviated as MOFs, are a family of synthetic porous particles built from metal ions connected by organic linking molecules. By tuning the choice of metal and linker, chemists can design MOFs with cavities of specific sizes and surface chemistries, allowing them to selectively capture target molecules.

The appeal of MOFs lies in their extraordinary internal surface area and functionality. A single gram of some MOFs can expose an internal surface area comparable to a football field, providing countless binding sites for guest molecules. This makes them excellent candidates for adsorbing chemical residues, catalyzing their breakdown, and even signaling their presence through changes in optical properties. Yet MOFs have a well-known practical weakness: as synthesized, they are brittle crystalline powders with individual particles that are extremely small and difficult to handle, filter, or deploy in the field. A material that works brilliantly in a laboratory flask may be nearly impossible to use on a farm.

This is where the hybrid strategy becomes powerful. By embedding MOF particles within a mat of nanocellulose fibers, the Tennessee team intends to lock the porous particles into a flexible, mechanically robust, and eco-friendly scaffold. Nanocellulose can be processed into paper-like sheets or lightweight foams, formats that are easy to manufacture, transport, and apply. In Li’s description of the concept, the two components work in synergy: the MOFs contribute large surface area and high functionality for capturing and transforming chemicals, while the nanocellulose solves the handling problems, yielding composites that can be shaped into practical pads and filters.

The envisioned end product is a tangible, portable pad-foam that could function like a sponge in contaminated wastewater or be placed on the surface of crops and produce. When the material takes up certain pollutant chemicals, even in trace amounts, its optical appearance changes in a way that can be detected under ultraviolet light. This sensing step is critical, because one of the biggest obstacles in agricultural chemical management is simply knowing whether harmful residues are present. Conventional laboratory analysis of produce, soil, and water is accurate but slow, expensive, and impractical for routine on-farm screening.

Detection, however, is only half of the design. By controlling exposure to specific wavelengths of light, the Cello-MOFs are intended to initiate the degradation of the pollutants they have adsorbed, ideally converting them into non-toxic compounds or products with reduced toxicity. This light-triggered approach draws on established photochemistry: many MOF structures can participate in photocatalytic reactions in which absorbed light energy generates reactive species capable of breaking chemical bonds in pesticide and fertilizer residues. Combining capture, sensing, and degradation in one material would allow a single pad to find a contaminant, announce that it has found it, and then destroy it.

Li’s laboratory, described as a circular biorefining lab within the Center for Renewable Carbon, specializes in converting plant-based resources into valuable chemicals, functional materials, and polymers. His work integrates wood chemistry, chemical synthesis, chemical engineering, polymer science, and nanotechnology in service of green chemistry, a circular carbon economy, and a cleaner environment. That background is well suited to the current challenge, since the Cello-MOFs themselves will be assembled from plant fibers, metals, and linking molecules, meaning the cleanup material is partly built from renewable biomass rather than entirely from petrochemical feedstocks.

The motivation for the project is rooted in a fundamental tension of modern agriculture. Chemical inputs such as pesticides, fertilizers, and plant growth boosters play a major role in raising crop yields and protecting harvests, but their use frequently produces health hazards and environmental pollution. Residues can persist on produce, leach into groundwater, and run off into waterways, where they may harm ecosystems and human health. Mitigating these chemicals is difficult for two reasons: leftover amounts are hard to detect in the first place, and once detected, converting them into harmless substances requires chemistry that is selective, gentle, and compatible with real-world conditions rather than controlled laboratory settings.

If the prototype materials perform as designed, the researchers believe the technology could enable quick, on-the-spot monitoring and cleanup of chemical residues, while also advancing approaches to purify air, detect threats, and protect the environment in agriculture and other fields. The two-year USDA funding period will be spent creating and testing the prototype Cello-MOFs, moving the concept from laboratory synthesis toward practical formats. The broader vision, as Li frames it, is to mitigate environmental pollution by using renewable biomass feedstock and green chemistry technology, closing the loop between the plant fibers that agriculture produces and the chemical residues that agriculture sometimes leaves behind.

The project also illustrates a growing trend in environmental nanotechnology: rather than relying on a single miracle material, researchers are increasingly combining complementary components so that each compensates for the other’s weaknesses. Metal-organic frameworks supply the molecular precision, enormous surface area, and tunable reactivity needed to capture and transform specific pollutants. Nanocellulose supplies the mechanical backbone, processability, and renewable origin needed to turn those capabilities into something a farmer, a water treatment operator, or a food safety inspector could actually hold in hand. Whether that partnership can survive the jump from the bench to the field will be the central question of the coming two years, but the underlying idea, a sponge that glows when it catches a poison and then destroys it under light, has an intuitive appeal that could carry it a long way.

Subject of Research: Hybrid nanocellulose and metal-organic framework materials for detecting and degrading agricultural chemical pollutants

Article Title: UTIA researchers create hybrid materials to break down harmful farming chemicals

Article References: UTIA researchers create hybrid materials to break down harmful farming chemicals. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: nanocellulose, metal-organic frameworks, agricultural pollution, pesticide residues, USDA NIFA, green chemistry, nanotechnology, water remediation, photocatalysis, University of Tennessee, renewable carbon, environmental sensing

Behind the program are Phillip Myer and Jennie Ivey, both professors in the UT Department of Animal Science, who have secured a $750,000 grant from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture to fund the project over five years. Their central premise is that scientific training alone is insufficient. Students must also learn how knowledge moves out of the laboratory and into the field, where it influences livestock management, animal welfare and the economic viability of farms. By deliberately fusing these domains within a single fellowship, the program aims to produce graduates who can generate, translate and communicate science with equal confidence.

Recruitment will be national in scope, drawing applicants from animal science, agricultural and related life science programs across the country. Once selected, fellows will embark on a year-long sequence combining virtual and in-person experiences, each anchored in one of six focus areas: animal nutrition; livestock production, robotics and automation; livestock gene editing and genomics; animal disease, immunology and parasitism; animal welfare; or animal reproduction. These tracks reflect the scientific frontiers where animal agriculture is changing fastest, from precision feeding strategies to genome editing tools that promise healthier, more productive herds.

One of the program’s most distinctive features is its integrated mentoring model. Rather than pairing each student with a single advisor, F.U.S.E. assigns every fellow a team that includes research faculty, Extension faculty, a graduate student mentor and a county Extension agent. This structure exposes students to the full arc of agricultural science: the design of experiments, the interpretation of data and the practical challenge of delivering findings to producers, industry representatives and other stakeholders who will ultimately apply them. Mentors from different professional backgrounds will model the collaboration that modern agricultural problem-solving increasingly requires.

Myer emphasizes the broader stakes of the effort. By strengthening the pipeline of well-trained animal science professionals, he notes, the program will support not only agriculture itself but also the local communities, economies and food systems that depend on a skilled and innovative workforce. Ivey adds that the project will train undergraduates through mentored research, farm-based experiences and Extension activities that translate science into practical solutions for producers and stakeholders. Together, their vision positions the fellowship as an investment in rural resilience as much as in individual careers.

The technical training embedded in the fellowship is deliberately comprehensive. Fellows will receive hands-on instruction in experimental design, data collection and analysis, animal management, scientific writing and science communication. They will also work alongside Extension professionals during farm visits, production-site experiences and outreach programming, and will contribute to the development of Extension materials used with real audiences. The experience culminates in an intensive summer research and Extension residency in which students finalize their projects, sharpen their communication skills and engage directly with animal agriculture professionals, ensuring that no fellow completes the program without having presented and defended their work in professional settings.

Networking opportunities form another pillar of the program. Fellows will prepare scientific abstracts and presentations and will have opportunities to present their research at the American Society of Animal Science Annual Meeting, one of the field’s most important gatherings, as well as at a dedicated F.U.S.E. Animal Science Conference hosted by UTIA. These venues will connect students with scientists, Extension specialists, industry representatives and other leaders across animal agriculture, giving early-career undergraduates access to professional networks that typically take years to build. Recruitment for the first cohort is expected to begin in January 2027, with the inaugural fellows starting their experience later that year.

The F.U.S.E. award is part of a considerably larger federal commitment: an $8.8 million investment by USDA-NIFA in Research and Extension Experiences for Undergraduates, or REEU. That national program funds experiential learning opportunities that help undergraduates develop the technical, professional and leadership skills needed for careers in food and agriculture or for continued study in graduate and professional programs. F.U.S.E. Animal Science advances these goals by intentionally integrating research and Extension training within a single year-long fellowship, a design its creators argue is rarer than it should be in undergraduate agricultural education.

The program’s leaders bring complementary expertise to the effort. Myer’s research focuses on gut microbiology in beef cattle, with particular emphasis on the rumen microbiome and its significance for feed efficiency and nutritional physiology. He helped create rumenmicrobes.utk.edu, a public resource explaining the science of microorganisms and animal nutrition, and earned his B.S. in biology from Bradley University in 2008 and his Ph.D. in microbiology from Purdue University in 2013. He subsequently worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the USDA-ARS U.S. Meat Animal Research Center from 2013 to 2015, studying gut microbiome impacts on nutrition and feed efficiency in finishing beef steers, and currently serves as Director of Graduate Studies for the UT Department of Animal Science.

Ivey completed a B.S. in equine science at Rutgers University in 2009 before earning her M.S. and Ph.D. at West Virginia University, where she studied equine nutrition and exercise physiology. Her research and Extension interests center on nutritional, exercise and management interventions that improve equine well-being, along with the influence of owner knowledge on equine management. She serves on the Equine Health Advisory Commission for the Tennessee Department of Agriculture and on the Board of Directors for the National Association of Equine Affiliated Academics. Together with the broader University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture, which comprises the Herbert College of Agriculture, the UT College of Veterinary Medicine, UT AgResearch and UT Extension, the two professors hope F.U.S.E. will become a national model for how land-grant institutions prepare students to carry agricultural science from the bench to the barn and beyond.

Subject of Research: An undergraduate fellowship integrating animal science research and Extension training at the University of Tennessee

Article Title: UTIA launches fellowship to prepare future animal science professionals

Article References: UTIA launches fellowship to prepare future animal science professionals. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: animal science, undergraduate fellowship, USDA NIFA, Extension, University of Tennessee, research training, livestock, REEU, science communication, agricultural workforce, mentoring, professional development