Abstract
Oil dispersion (OD), as a formulation type in the pesticide industry, has become more important over the past few years. This increased importance is due to (1) new water sensitive active ingredients, (2) the compatibility of active ingredient mixtures, (3) the need to build-in adjuvancy properties, and (4) customer preference of liquid formulations. Unlike well known technologies such as aqueous suspension concentrates (SCs), for which scientists have extensive experience in formulation practices resulting in readily available technologies for developing a stable formulation, OD is a relatively new technology. Technical knowledge for developing a stable OD formulation is still an area that needs significant investigation. The present work seeks to determine useful criteria for characterizing and predicting long term stability of OD formulations using readily accessible technologies such as rheological measurements and centrifugation. The characterization results are reported for systems that are commercially available from two agricultural companies.
