Valerio Bramati

A New Environmentally Friendly Solvent of Low Toxicity for Crop Protection Formulations

A new solvent for the crop protection formulations is described. Solvents are essential components in various pesticide formulations. Many traditional solvents used in agricultural applications are currently under scrutiny because of increasing environmental and regulatory concerns. Agrochemical formulators are facing a need to find alternative solvents that are environmentally friendly while continuing to deliver traditional solvent performance. A new polar solvent, an archetype of a novel class of products containing a tertiary amide group combined with an ester function namely Methyl 5-(dimethylamino) 2-methyl 5-oxopentanoate (RHODIASOLV Polarclean) (RHODIASOLV is the registered trade mark of Rhodia, Cranbury, NJ) is described. This new solvent exhibits an outstanding safety and non toxic environmental profile. Additionally, many agrochemical active ingredients have good solubilities in this new solvent. Hansen solubility parameters demonstrate the high level of solvency properties of this ester-amide when compared to the commonly used agrochemical solvents. In addition to meeting the customer requirements on delivering good solvent performance, the raw material utilized in the manufacture of this solvent is a by-product of polyamide manufacture and has been selected to meet the sustainability criteria.