Controlled release fertilizer (CRF) plays a crucial yet necessary part in the sustainable agriculture industry. An alarming rise in call for crop production directly influences the increasing need for synthetically derived fertilizers and pesticides production. The application of CRF has been a gamechanger as an environmentally sustainable pathway to increase crop yields by paving desired phase of plant growth via a direct or indirect mechanism. The mechanism of CRF does not only decreases nutrient dissipation due to volatilization and leaching, but also provides a precisely appropriate nutrient release design that is suitable in the physiological and biochemical aspect of the plant growth. However, CRF is not deployed on larger scale of commercial agriculture practices due to being expensive, has relatively low efficiency in releasing nutrients and its coatings are largely composed of petroleum-based synthetic polymers. Alternatively, there are many polymers derived from renewable and biodegradable sources that can be used as coating material for CRF in the form of bio-nanocomposites. Having said that, there is an apparent gap between the mechanism of the CRFs for promoting plant growth and the prominent role of the nanocomposites especially bio-nanocomposites as coating material for CRF synthesis, thus the importance of nanotechnology application in enhancing the effectiveness of CRF. Therefore, this review attempts to bridge the stated gap and summarizes the comprehensive developments, application mechanisms and future potential of CRF as a fertilizer for crop sustainability.

控释肥料 (CRF) 在可持续农业中发挥着至关重要但必不可少的作用。作物生产需求的惊人增长直接影响了对合成肥料和杀虫剂生产的日益增长的需求。CRF 的应用已经改变了游戏规则，作为一种环境可持续的途径，通过直接或间接的机制为植物生长的所需阶段铺平道路，从而提高作物产量。CRF的机制不仅减少了由于挥发和浸出造成的养分耗散，而且提供了适合植物生长生理生化方面的精确合适的养分释放设计。然而，由于价格昂贵，CRF 并未在更大规模的商业农业实践中部署，其营养物质释放效率相对较低，其涂层主要由石油基合成聚合物组成。或者，有许多源自可再生和生物可降解来源的聚合物可以以生物纳米复合材料的形式用作 CRF 的涂层材料。话虽如此，CRFs促进植物生长的机制与纳米复合材料特别是生物纳米复合材料作为CRF合成涂层材料的突出作用之间存在明显差距，因此纳米技术应用对提高CRF有效性的重要性。因此，本综述试图弥合上述差距，并总结 CRF 作为作物可持续性肥料的综合发展、应用机制和未来潜力。