Global population is rapidly increasing and is predicted to reach 9.7 billion by 2050. The limited resources tend to push the sector forward, demanding the development of highly efficient agriculture, thus allowing the reduction of worldwide poverty and hunger (Zulfiqar et al. 2019). Hence, chemical fertilizers have been considered an inevitable source of plant nutrition for improving crop production. This led to farmers' notion that using higher doses of chemical fertilizers gains higher crop yields. In addition, farmers frequently apply fertilizers to get targeted production levels. This overuse of chemical fertilizers counteracts the beneficial effects and raises salt concentration in the soil, which might result in crop losses in the future. Furthermore, irregular use of fertilizers without control of nutrient release patterns causes product quality deterioration. Therefore, developing slow or controlled-release fertilizers plays a crucial role not only in enhancing crop production, productivity, and quality but also in upgrading sustainability in agricultural production. Due to the advance properties of nanomaterials, such as high surface-to-volume ratio, controlled-release of nutrients to the targeted sites and absorption capacity, nanotechnology is highly important when designing and using these new fertilizers. Nano fertilizers are nutrients encapsulated or coated with different types of nanomaterials for the slow delivery and control of one or more nutrients in order to satisfy the plants nutrient requirements (Solanki et al. 2016). These "smart fertilizers" are now being referred to as a potential substitute, to the extent that they are the preferred form of fertilizers over the conventional ones in several cases.