Crop Care
An oil dispersion (OD) formulation is a solid active ingredient dispersed in oil. The oil can vary from paraffinic to aromatic solvent types and vegetable oil or methylated seed oils. Ideally the active ingredient is uniformly suspended in the oil phase.
ODs are an excellent delivery system for water sensitive active ingredients such as sulfonylureas. However, ODs have extended to other active ingredients due to their better spray retention, spreading and foliar uptake as the carrier oil often acts as an adjuvant.
Benefits
- Especially suited to hydrolytically unstable actives allowing them to be formulated as liquid formulations
- The oil continuous phase acts as a built-in adjuvant
- The oil adjuvant can provide both penetration enhancement and spray retention enhancement
- Does not need preserving (water free)
Limitations
- Can suffer from more sedimentation compared to water based systems
- Difficult to formulate