Development of surfactants for pesticides

The addition of surfactants greatly reduces the surface tension of the solution, enhances the wetting, distribution and adhesion of the agent on the body surface of the plant or pest, increases the retention amount of the pesticide on the plant surface, extends the retention time and improves the penetration ability of the plant epidermis, thus improving the drug effect.

Surfactants play the role of wetting, dispersing, emulsifying and solutizing in pesticide processing, and have become one of the indispensable components of pesticide preparations, and are often called auxiliaries, emulsifiers, dispersants, auxiliary agents, etc., they can be a combination of a variety of surfactants. The addition of surfactants greatly reduces the surface tension of the solution, enhances the wetting, distribution and adhesion of the agent on the body surface of the plant or pest, increases the retention amount of the pesticide on the plant surface, extends the retention time and improves the penetration ability of the plant epidermis, thus improving the drug effect.

The development of surfactants for pesticides can be roughly divided into two stages: natural surfactants and organic synthetic surfactants.

Natural surfactants such as various animal and plant oils, animal gum, rosin soap, waste molasses, starch paste, tea, saponin, etc. are used to improve the dispersion, adhesion and wettability of the agent. With the development of textile, printing and dyeing, medicine and food industry, the research and production of surfactants have also developed rapidly, making the research and utilization of surfactants for pesticides increasingly specialized. Especially after the Second World War, the rapid growth of organic synthetic pesticides, emulsion and wettable powder became the main pesticide dosage forms, and further promoted the application and development of surfactants with wetting and emulsifying effects.

Pesticide formulations are developing in the direction of waterborne, granular, multi-functional, slow-release, labor-saving and fine, and some new formulations that are efficient, safe, economical and environmentally compatible, such as micro-emulsion, water emulsion, suspended emulsion, water-dispersed granule, dry suspension agent, slow-release and other new formulations are emerging, and will be the mainstream of pesticide formulation development in the 21st century. The demand of surfactants for new dosage forms of pesticides will promote the production and development of surfactants for pesticides. Around the new trend of the development of pesticide dosage forms, the world's pesticide surfactants are developing in the direction of non-toxic environmental protection, high molecular weight, high efficiency, low dosage, multi-function, high quality and low price.