Lier Chemical: 20,000-ton L-glufosinate production capacity to start running soon

Editor：Mickey Shan

Feature : Showcase of China’s ″Specialized and Novel″ crop protection products/technologies/applications

▋ Special sponsor: Lansheng Biotechy 

▋ A total of 11 enterprises are introduced in this series; The Feature was first published in the latest "2023 China Pesticide Industry Watch" 

The overall industrial upgrading of Chinese manufacture industry happens to coincides with the unprecedented changes in the last 100 years. 

In this new era full of opportunities and policy support, the Chinese pesticide enterprises have worked hard to achieve constant technical breakthroughs via innovation and upgrading, as based on the experiences gained in the past decades. Some enterprises have so far made preliminary achievements, having formed an advanced and sophisticated technology and product cluster. 

In this Feature, we have selected 11 Chinese pesticide manufacturers that are characterized with professionalism, intensification, specialization and novelty, which is a presentation of Chinese pesticide enterprise’s research and development of new products, breakthroughs in technical innovation, upgrading of type of formulations and continued exploration of applications. The publication will exhibit the achievements in each individual sector, which is internationally advanced, revealing the new competitiveness of Chinese pesticide industry.

▉Series of special topics are released in succession → specially planned by AgroPages

• Lansheng Biotech：Green chemical innovation drives fine chemical production to reach a new level

• Eastlake High-Tech: Application of microreaction, continuous flow technologies to improve quality of plant growth regulators

• Qilu, industry leader of high quality spinosad

• KingAgroot – Innovative flagship integrating compound creation and biotechnical breeding

• CAC Nantong: Cyproflanilide, a created novel insecticide with unique action mechanism

• Yonon: Production of L-glufosinate on multienzyme

• Lier Chemical: 20,000-ton L-glufosinate production capacity to start running soon

• Red Sun: Diquat dichloride aims to create new burndown herbicide market trend

• Fosetyl-aluminium: Focusing on European wine grape market, Limin’s product concept upgraded

• Pilarbio: Working imaginatively on CS – an innovative cutting-edge formulation

• Chengdu New Sun: Making breakthroughs in industrialized application of plant growth regulation coronatine, first time in the world

  Lier Chemical: 20,000-ton L-glufosinate production capacity to start running soon  

L-glufosinate is a typical non-selective herbicide. With the changes in the non-selective herbicide market in recent years, the traditional non-selective herbicide varieties have shown increased resistance, reduced cost effectiveness or trending of prohibition in some countries.

At this time, glufosinate shows up as a mixture of L-Isomer and D-Isomer, each accounting for 50% while only L-Isomer is active. In the circumstance of the advocated ″reduction of the use of fertilizer and pesticide and increase in efficiency of use,″ it is imperative to develop L-glufosinate to support the green agricultural development initiative. 

Meiji in Japan and South Korea initially promoted L-glyphosate with a sale of about 100 tons in 2018 and 2019, respectively. However, due to the asymmetric catalytic process applied in its production, the cost was too high which restrained the production and sale volume.

With the registration of Lier Chemical’s product, produced via patented new biological method with independent intellectual property rights, L-glyphosate is produced using glufosinate as a raw material under the catalysis of biological enzymes through chiral reaction, which enabled mass production of L-glufosinate.

In theory, the weeding effect of L-glyphosate is twice that of glufosinate while the market price is only 1.5-1.7 times that of glufosinate. Therefore, after mass production is realized, L-glufosinate can overtake glufosinate in terms of weeding effect, pricing and environmental contribution.

To realize the rapid growth of L-glufosinate; reduce the cost of farmer’ application; respond to the national policy of reducing pesticide and fertilizer use while increasing the efficiency of use to support the green control initiative, Lier Chemical has participated in the development of L-glufosinate. It has commissioned the L-glufosntae project in Hunan Lier Biological, a subsidiary of Lier Chemical in Changde, Hunan, where the 20,000-ton L-glufosinate capacity will be built in July 2023; It is estimated that in the second half of 2023, 7000-8000 tons of L-glyphosate capacity will be released to market.

In the next three to five years, the demand for L-glyphosate is expected to increase significantly. At the same time, the breakthrough of new processes, the reduction of production costs and the completion of registration will gradually replace glufosinate and some other non-selective herbicides.

In all probability, in the future, Lier Chemical will deploy 100,000 tons of L-glufosinate in Jingzhou, Guang’an and other bases according to the market situation, to promote the rapid development of the L-glufosinate industry to benefit global agricultural production.

This article was initially published in AgroPages' 2023 China Pesticide Industry Watch magazine.