iformula

David Calvert, September 2019

Adjuvants are commonly added to commercial pesticides, either in the spray tank or as delivered to the farmer, known as in-can. They are not active ingredients in themselves but bring performance benefits to the products such as spray drift minimisation, penetration enhancement, rain resistance leaf adherence etc. The global market for adjuvants was estimated to be grow to more than $3.5 billion dollars in 2021 in the Adjuvants and Additives report published by Agrow in 2017, which was a Compound Annual Growth Rate of about 6%. So we would expect that this healthy growth rate would be intimately linked to the growth of biopesticides?

For the remainder of this article go to New Ag International Magazine, page 24.

Jim Bullock, May 2019

Aided by a favourable regulatory climate, as well as by concerns about conventional pesticides, the biopesticide market continues to grow. The global market is projected to grow from USD 3.0 billion in 2018 to USD 6.4 billion by 20231. Alongside the increased use of biopesticides (and other bio-actives used for agriculture, such as plant growth regulators and biostimulants) have come developments of more effective Integrated Pest Management application methods which take into account the health of the wider ecosystem and of the possible environmental impact of using control methods. However, with a total pesticide market (i.e. including conventional chemical pesticides) of around USD 56 billion, there remains considerable potential for further biopesticide growth…

For the remainder of this article go to the Agropages Formulation and Adjuvant Technology 2019 magazine. A free login is required.

Jim Bullock, August 2019

When formulating biological actives for crop protection, the main challenge is that of stability – in the case of natural extracts such as peptides and proteins there can be chemical or physical mechanisms for instability and in the case of microbials,biological stability can be an issue. Additionally, the stability of the product to degradation by UV light can also be important and challenging.

One of the ways in which formulators can protect the active against degradation is by using microencapsulation technologies. As well as improving stability, microencapsulation can be used control the rate of release of an active or to reduce the exposure of the user to the active for reasons of safety…

For the remainder of this article go to the Agropages Biologicals Special 2019 magazine. A free login is required.

iFormulate was delighted to be able to support the University of Lincoln in celebrating the achievements of the latest graduates from the University’s M.Chem course.

This year’s winner of the Profession Practice in Chemistry prize was new graduate Declan Finney. The award was sponsored by iFormulate.

Since the inception of the Lincoln M.Chem course, iFormulate‘s David Calvert and Jim Bullock have and presented a short lecture series on Formulation Science and Technology to Lincoln’s second-year M.Chem students.

Declan commented on the value of his M.Chem degree and the Professional Practice modules: “I am a recent MChem graduate of chemistry at the University of Lincoln. My degree has provided me with a range of transferable skills and techniques that I have brought to the workplace with confidence and integrity. As part of my studies, I completed Professional Practice modules that have broadened my understanding of the chemical industry and helped me to develop both in a professional and personal sense. I am incredibly honoured to receive this award and would like to thank everyone who has been a part of this journey. Special acknowledgement to Professor Ian Scowen, Dr. Tasnim Munshi and Dr. Lyudmila Turyanska for their continued support throughout my four years at Lincoln.“

October 2019.

What is in or on a label? Over the last few months, I have been mulling over the value – or in some cases lack of value – of labelling. My thoughts were provoked started with an article in the UK’s Daily Telegraph which revealed that currently in the UK there are no less than 58 widely used symbols on packaging, glass, plastic and batteries which are intended to inform consumers what and whether they can recycle.

Add to this the large number of European Resin Identification Codes (RIC) for plastics as well as the widely varying recycling capabilities of the UK’s local authorities and it is hardly surprising that consumers, even well-meaning ones like myself, struggle to know what they can and cannot put into their recycling bin.

I then had the pleasure of presenting at the First Biopesticide Summit in Swansea in the summer and was on a panel which was posed the question of which single action they would like to see that would potentially increase the uptake of biopesticides. One panel member put forward the idea that all foods should be labelled with the materials that they had been treated with. I thought this was an interesting suggestion, fraught with difficulties, but still worth considering. Shortly afterwards I bought some oranges in the local supermarket and happened to notice the label stated that they treated with imazalil and thiabendazole. The label also mentioned E904 and E914.

So was I any wiser having seen this? I could have used my smartphone to find out that E904 is shellac – which in some cases is not suitable for vegans- and that E914 is a polyethylene wax but how many shoppers have time to do that? As for the other two treatment regimes, how many shoppers are going to look at dossiers and safety reports and then make a decision as to whether to purchase the oranges? Then a few weeks later I buy some more oranges and the label stated that they had been treated with imazalil, thiabendazole, pyrimethanil, 2,4-D, Wax E914, E904 and E903. So are these “better” or “worse” than the first bag of oranges?

Admittedly, the reason for the labels on oranges relates to specific regulations about post-harvest treatment on oranges and is not widespread. However, it does raise the question about what it is intended to achieve? Am I as the consumer better informed? I suppose so, but has that influenced my next purchasing decision? Probably not – and I’m a chemist who knows a little about agrochemicals.

So rather than words, what about symbols or logos? Well in agriculture, if the desire of one conference delegate comes true for all produce, then we could be heading towards the same issue I highlighted earlier with recycling. Food labelling in the UK has used the traffic light symbols to highlight content of salt, sugar and so on in foods – so could that be an answer? The levels used for food labels are absolute and not subject to interpretation, so who would determine what should be labelled red, orange and green for agricultural produce?  

Labelling can be a very powerful tool – as we see regularly in cosmetics with “free-from” labels – but before anything is introduced, there needs to be some thought given to how it can be extended and what real value it brings when making actual purchasing decisions. I don’t have the answer but I do hope that those introducing the labels look at the big picture and are not just seeking a short term publicity gain. 

David Calvert – October 2019

Dr David Calvert – July 2019

The Formula Conferences first started in 1987 in France and the tenth in the series(Formula X) was organised by the Formulation Science and Technology Group (FSTG) of the Royal Society of Chemistry and has just taken place in Manchester.

We were delighted to be invited to organise a two hour workshop on “Design of Formulations” for 30 of the delegates on the second evening and were even more pleased that all of the registered delegates stayed until the end and by then appeared to have gained a good understanding of concepts such as Customer Promises, Critical Quality Attributes, Critical Process Parameters and the like.

In the main conference, I was struck by two elements, namely the continued drive to making formulation into a science and the never-ending search to find new formulation formats to solve delivery problems.

Let me start with the drive to making formulation more of a science and I have to confess that I am now becoming a little tired of hearing how formulation is (or was) an art and that efforts are now underway to turn it into a science. I welcome more science but have to say that the “grey-haired formulators”, of whom I am unashamedly one, were more than just “lucky artists” and that there was often some logic, and quite often science behind our efforts. Still, I am encouraged by efforts to bring more rigour to test methods for simple “dirty” tasks such as cleaning, deposit and release of functional additives on textiles and rain resistance of pesticides on leaves.

Venturing even more into formulation science, there were many talks about encapsulation techniques and materials and I heard for the first time that there are some limitations to what graphene can actually achieve! Furthermore, we heard about different types of emulsions such as water in water, double emulsions and Pickering Emulsions.

So I look forward to the next Formula Conference in three years time at an – as yet – unspecified venue and I would like to thank in particular Flor Siperstein, Helen Ryder and Simon Gibbon for their hard work in organising the conference. Simon further demonstrated how the oldies can embrace new technologies with his use of QR codes in the programme and on badges as well as with the conference photo (above) taken using a drone. Maybe at the next conference we will have a presentation from a hologram?

Comments and questions: david@iformulate.biz.

Dr David Calvert, July 2019

I was delighted to be asked to present at the inaugural Biopesticides Summit in Swansea and congratulate the organisers and particularly Minshad Ansari of Bionema Limited on a very interesting event.

There is no doubt that there is a public appetite for more natural alternatives to chemical pesticides, and as resistance to chemical pesticides continues to increase, the use of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and natural pest control will become more commonplace. There are moves to try and establish more appropriate regulatory regimes for biocontrol (although, let’s be honest, that isn’t going happen very quickly) and the work of the International Biocontrol Manufacturers Association (IBMA) is to be applauded in that regard. Pipelines for new products are already strongly emphasising biological actives, so why have I chosen the title of this post?

Well, may be a little biased but I do believe that in the search for the ultimate active or microbe or virus the biocontrol industry is in danger of missing the opportunity presented by formulation. This came across most to me when I was invited to sit on a panel at the end of the conference and answer questions raised by other delegates. One of the questions posed was to ask whether the panel felt that the effort to identify more specific strains was a worthy one. Earlier in the morning, we had been given a presentation which suggested that as little as 1% of an applied biopesticide was reaching its target due to spray drift, lack of spreading, lack of adhesion, poor rain resistance and penetration etc. In other words, biopesticides in this instance are literally missing the mark! These issues are not trivial ones but are common to chemical pesticides and can certainly be improved by correct formulation and the choice of appropriate adjuvants. So I was somewhat disappointed that the approach suggested by the panel was yes this should be a key activity and not only should we be looking to develop national registers of bacteria strains but also global databases. Whilst you should always of course be looking out for new actives, surely it is a little naïve to think that a new active is going to be so robust that it can withstand what is clearly an inadequate formulation. I think that my answer that new strains and looking for another “silver bullet” was not the right approach may not have gone down too well but I felt that I had to get this off my chest!

Other excellent presentations during the conference talked about how biopesticides needed new advice for growers about when and how to apply and also how encapsulation and use of adjuvants can bring significant benefits.

The conference did not touch on the area of smart agriculture, but this is already showing great promise. So if we are to achieve challenging targets of producing more food in a more sustainable way, then we must not get dragged down by looking for the perfect solution and complaining about regulators but focus efforts on making more of what we already have and improving the application of existing sustainable products. Of course formulation can play a key role in this and at iFormulate we will certainly be keen to help more players in this important sector achieve the full potential of their products! 

How can we help? Questions or comments to david@iformulate.biz.     

The world of plant protection is changing rapidly with many interesting new approaches entering the market. For this reason Bionema Limited and Swansea University are to host the inaugural Biopesticide Summit in July 2019. The organisers expect to address the pressing need to develop alternatives to chemical crop protection.

The Summit will also include the Biopesticide Awards which celebrate the achievement, excellence, and the contribution industry and research communities make to the biocontrol community. 

The Biopesticide Summit 2019 will focus on developing and introducing innovative and alternative biocontrol solutions that will help protect our food chain in a controlled but timely manner.

The global biopesticides market is growing rapidly. It was worth approximately $3.36 billion in 2016 and is projected to reach $8.82 billion by 2022. However, despite significant growth in the biocontrol industry, major limitations with current biopesticide solutions are rarely discussed. There is an urgent need to develop novel products and application technologies to not only “fill the gaps” in the market due to pesticide removal but also to anticipate future requirements as pests and diseases are developing resistance to currently used chemical products.  In additional, there is increasing consumer led retailer demand for growers to eradicate the use of chemical pesticides in crop production and to grow fruit and vegetables with reduced detectable residues.

One challenge particularly dear to our hearts at iFormulate is that of formulating biopesticides effectively. At the Summit, iFormulate’s Dr David Calvert will discuss the increasing need to improve biopesticide performance through formulation science and technology. Formulation can bring benefits in terms of delivery mechanism, release profile and stability amongst other key properties. In his presentation, David will discuss will review the differences between biopesticides and conventional pesticide active ingredients and outline how these can lead to differing formulation strategies. He will also outline how formulation technology can be used to resolve some of the stability issues concerning the common microbial biopesticide, Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt)

You can find registration and other details on the Biopesticide Summit here.

First students graduate with a little help from iFormulate

iFormulate was pleased to join the University of Lincoln in celebrating the achievements of the first graduates from the University’s new M.Chem course, which rates top for student satisfaction amongst the UK’s chemistry courses. 

Since 2015 iFormulate has been delighted to devise and present a short lecture series on Formulation Science and Technology to Lincoln’s second-year M.Chem students. It has been especially pleasing that students have reported that the course has helped their career prospects with companies involved in formulation.

Since its founding in 2012, iFormulate has trained numerous industrialists and others in many aspects of formulation, so it is especially satisfying to be able to be involved now in helping to educate the new generation of formulation scientists.

December 2018