Micronutrient compositions

Abstract

An agrochemical micronutrient concentrate and or formulations with dispersants for said concentrates/formulations, in particular a dispersant for use in suspending solid micronutrients in suspension concentrate type formulations comprising one or more micronutrients. The dispersant is preferably a water dispersible styrene (meth)acrylic copolymer. The micronutrient is selected from zinc oxide, manganese carbonate, manganese oxide, or calcium carbonate, and present in the concentrate at 40 wt. %. or more. The present invention also includes methods of treating crops with such micronutrient formulations.

Claims

1. A stable aqueous liquid agrochemical concentrate comprising; i) at least one solid micronutrient, wherein the micronutrient is selected from manganese, and salts thereof; ii) a dispersant, said dispersant being a styrene (meth)acrylic copolymer; wherein the amount of the at least one solid micronutrient suspended in the concentrate is at least 40 wt. %.

2. The concentrate according to claim 1, wherein the dispersant is water dispersible.

3. The concentrate according to claim 1, wherein monomer repeating units in the copolymer are residues of (meth)acrylic acid monomer(s), and styrene monomer(s).

4. The concentrate according to claim 3, where the (meth)acrylic acid monomer(s) is selected from acrylic acid, methacrylic acid, crotonic acid or a mixture of two or more of these, and optionally comprise (meth)acrylic monomers which are derivatives of (meth)acrylic acid which include strong acid.

5. The concentrate according to claim 3, wherein the styrene monomer(s) is styrene or a substituted styrene, and optionally comprise styrene monomers including strongly acid substituents.

6. The concentrate according to claim 3, wherein the molar ratio of residues of the (meth)acrylic acid monomer(s) to those of the styrene monomer(s) is from 20:1 to 1:5 respectively.

7. The concentrate according to claim 1, wherein the concentration of the dispersant in said concentrate is from 0.2 wt. % to 50 wt. %.

8. The concentrate according to claim 1, wherein the concentrate comprises a wetting agent.

9. The concentrate according to claim 8, wherein the wetting agent is a non-ionic alkoxylate selected from lauryl alcohol (4 EO) ethoxylate, lauryl alcohol (5 EO) ethoxylate, lauryl alcohol (6 EO) ethoxylate, oleyl (3 EO) ethoxylate, oleyl (5 EO) ethoxylate, or oleyl (10 EO) ethoxylate.

10. The concentrate according to claim 1, wherein the micronutrient is selected from manganese carbonate or manganese oxide.

11. The concentrate according to claim 1, wherein the concentrate does not comprise any agrochemical active.

12. The concentrate according to claim 1, wherein the concentrate is formulated as an emulsifiable concentrate (EC), emulsion concentrate (EW), suspension concentrate (SC), soluble liquid (SL), as an oil-based suspension concentrate (OD), and/or suspoemulsions (SE).

13. An agrochemical formulation, said formulation formed by dilution with water of the concentrate according to claim 1, and addition of at least one agrochemical active.

14. The formulation according to claim 13, wherein the agrochemical active is a high electrolyte active.

15. The formulation according to claim 13, wherein the agrochemical active is glyphosate.

16. A method of forming an agrochemical formulation comprising the steps of; preparing an active formulation comprising at least one agrochemical active diluted in water; and adding the micronutrient concentrate in accordance with claim 1.

17. A method of treating vegetation to control pests, the method comprising applying an agrochemical formulation of claim 13, either to said vegetation or to the immediate environment of said vegetation.

18. A method of preparing stable aqueous liquid agrochemical concentrate, said method comprising mixing; at least one solid micronutrient, wherein the micronutrient is selected from manganese, and salts thereof; a dispersant, said dispersant being a styrene (meth)acrylic copolymer; wherein the amount of the at least one solid micronutrient suspended in the concentrate is at least 40 wt. %.

Description

SUSPENSIBILITY EXAMPLES

(1) Further concentrate formulations were prepared to evaluate suspensibility as shown in Table 4.

(2) TABLE-US-00004 TABLE 4 Concentrate formulations (values expressed in wt. %) Components A C6 C7 C8 C9 C10 MnCO.sub.3 tech. 60 60 60 60 60 60 Antiprex A 5.5 DS2 5.5 5.5 5.5 DS1 5.5 Synperonic A7 0.5 0.5 0.5 AL2575 0.5 Atlox AL- 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 3772 Water 33.9 34.4 33.9 33.9 33.9 A = Mn dis

(3) The prepared concentrate formulations were then assessed for the milling ability, aspect, and tank mix compatibility as previously described above.

(4) TABLE-US-00005 TABLE 5 Assessment of C6-C10 A C6 C7 C8 C9 C10 Mill Process NA Ok Viscosity Ok Ok Ok increases during mill process Aspect FG FG(M) FG(M) FG(M) FG(M) FG(M) (initial) Tank mix + ++ +++ +++ +++ +++ compatibility FG - Forms gels with time. Presence of gel block. FM - Flows when applying mild force + - poor glyphosate tank mix compatibility ++ - acceptable glyphosate tank mix compatibility +++ - good acceptable glyphosate tank mix compatibility

(5) Suspensibility Tests for C8

(6) Concentrate formulation C8 was tested with the reference sample Mn dis. The samples were analysed using a Turbiscan once diluted. The formulations were evaluated for tank mix compatibility using Roundup Transorb (from Monsanto) as a standard sample of glyphosate. The formulations were prepared according to Table 6.

(7) TABLE-US-00006 TABLE 6 Formulations prepared for suspensibility analysis Components Volume Glyphosate 360 g/L (a.e.) 15 mL Manganese formulation 5 mL Water Made up to 1 L

(8) Glyphosate solution was prepared and 40 mL of it was added to the Turbiscan glassware. The formulation was then added directly to Turbiscan tube that was capped, inverted 10 time and set for immediate scan in the equipment. The Turbiscan was programmed to scan the sample at a temperature set for 30 C.

(9) The Turbiscan measures change in particle size and provided a Turbiscan index (TSI) value. TSI sums all the variations detected in the samples in terms of size and/or concentration. The higher the TSI value, the worse is the stability. A lower TSI value indicates less flocculation and less of the micronutrient coming out of the suspension, therefore better stability. The settings are as shown in Table 7.

(10) TABLE-US-00007 TABLE 7 settings for Turbiscan Reference C8 (as formulated sample Table 6) Ref scan 0 s 0 s Temperature ( C.) 30.22 30.43 Bottom of the cell 0.80 0.80 Menuiscus 40.13 40.07

(11) Results from the Turbiscan are set out in Table 8.

(12) TABLE-US-00008 TABLE 8 Turbiscan (global) results Time (minutes) C8 (TSI) Reference (TSI) 0.5 0.5 30.7 1 1.0 38.9 2 1.7 43.1 3 3.3 44.3 4 7.0 45.1 5 12.9 45.7 6 18.3 46.0 7 21.5 46.2 8 23.3 46.4 9 24.3 46.5 10 25.0 46.7 15 27.5 48.1 20 29.0 49.5

(13) The Turbiscan data shows better suspensibility for the formulation of the present invention compared to the reference sample across the time period measured.

(14) It is to be understood that the invention is not to be limited to the details of the above embodiments, which are described by way of example only. Many variations are possible.