PilarBio Group: Nanopesticide enables Chinese formulation industry to ″overtake in corners″, calling for the setting up of a virtuous nanopesticide ecosystem

Editor’s Note: Nanotechnology is a cutting-edge technology in international competition, increasingly favored by the market because of its significant advantages in improving pesticide efficacy, utilization, safety and environment-friendliness. According to relevant data, the global nanopesticide market is expected to reach US$1.73 billion by 2031, with a compound annual growth rate of 12.5%.

So far, there has been significant progress in theoretical innovation and application research in the nanopesticide industry in China, which has jumped to the forefront of the world’s industry. The industry has gradually progressed from basic research to industrialization, which provides an excellent opportunity to transform and upgrade the Chinese pesticide industry. However, nanopesticides still face a lot of challenges like technology, process, mass production, cost control, evaluation, standard, application, and promotion in the process of commercialization, which require the joint efforts of government, research institutions, and enterprises to make significant technical breakthroughs, thus forming a sound industry layout to achieve the benefit of nanopesticides in reduction of the use of chemical pesticides, alleviation of the impact on the environment and increase of farmer’s business income.

Recently, AgroPages invited pioneers and key players in the field of nanopesticides, including SCIENX, PilarBio Group, Yinnong Technology, and Wynca Group, to make an in-depth analysis of problems and challenges faced by the Chinese nanopesticide industry chain, and to share their respective solutions and practical experiences, as well as their forecast for future. In this article, Liu Runfeng, Director of R&D Center, PilarBio Group shared his insights.

Liu Runfeng, Director of R&D Center, PilarBio Group

To make innovations in developing new nanopesticide products, what are the key highlights of innovation of PilarBio Group? Can you share the nanopesticide products launched by your company and their unique advantages? How is the progress of the promotion and application of these products?

Compared with conventional pesticides, nanopesticides not only change in size but also perform very well in their applications. At the beginning of our research of nanopesticide, we present the critical points of innovation, that is, an increase of spreading uniformity on target and improvement of safety, allowing for easier absorption of small particle size by the target, which facilitates better efficacy. The reason is that when the prepared particle size becomes smaller, it will be easier to adhere to plant leaves, thus becoming rainfastness. As a result, pesticide use is reduced while effect remains the same as conventional pesticide, or it can be applied better at the same dosage. Our products have further verified the above innovation highlights on sale, such as nano PILARTEP^® (pyraclostrobin·tebuconazole 30% SC) and nano-chlorothalonil.

Nano PILARTEP^® was launched in early 2022, being one of the earliest nanopesticides launched to market in China. To further study the synergistic effect and synergistic mechanism of nanopesticides, we have conducted in-depth research on deposition, absorption, and rainfastness of the nanopesticide on the target and subcellular structure, in cooperation with China Agricultural University, Institute of Plant Protection of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and Nankai University. The results of a large number of efficacy trials reveal that the deposition of active ingredients in plant tissues was 1.68-3.15 that of ordinary PILARTEP^® products, with a better absorption effect and a larger amount of absorption. Many field trials show that as against conventional PILARTEP^® products, at 25-50% reduced dosage,nano PILARTEP^® still is very effective.

In addition, we have launched a nano-chlorothalonil SC at a content of 720g/L in Brazil, which, upon application at a 30% reduced amount of active ingredients, shows an effect identical to conventional formulations; at BASF’s Shanghai efficacy experimental base, the nano PILARZOX^® (cyazofamid·cymoxanil 24% SC) also showed similar effect at 25% reduced use of the active ingredients, while efficacy remains the same.

What is the current cost of production and application of nanopesticides? What are the plans of PilarBio Group to reduce cost and promote the scale application of nanopesticides?

Currently, nanopesticides, especially nanosuspensions across the entire industry, still face the problems of rising costs, a decline in production capacity and an increase of the cost of adjuvants. However, considering the reduced use and the increased efficiency of nanopesticides, the cost of its application must be considered reasonably.

Going ahead, we will launch more nanopesticide varieties to the market, while we have to tackle the issues of production efficiency and cost appropriately. To this end, we are prepared to improve efficiency and reduce cost in the following aspects to promote the large-scale application of nanopesticides: 

1) To improve the equipment level and process level, especially the sand mill grinding method, grinding process, and reasonable combination of grinding mediums to enhance efficiency; 

2) To seek the use of novel equipment, especially in battery, coating, ink industries such as high-pressure micro jet, high-pressure homogenization, and ultra-fine grinding; 

3) To explore novel formulation methods, nanomaterial applications and nanocrystallization of technical materials to reduce the excessive dependence of nanopesticides on equipment.

What are your views on the current regulatory policy for nanopesticides? What are your expectations and recommendations to government and industry players?

The emergence, development, promotion, and application of any new technologies would take time, and nanopesticides are no exception. The global regulatory policy of nanopesticides needs to be constantly improved, as there is a lack of standardized processes governing market entry and there is no guiding policy in place. Nanopesticides spring up all over the country, for which identification and criteria for judgment need to be made available. If market operations continue like this, it would inevitably lead to an out-of-order competition, where bad money drives out the good, and true innovation becomes impossible. Issues such as residues, food risks, non-target biosecurity, and ecological safety brought by nanopesticides may make the public doubt and object to nanopesticides.

I believe that nanopesticide, as a new technology or technological innovation, is not required to be universal, which does not need to be hyped to increase product sales, but also should not be prejudiced and put down. All these ways of doing the work do not favor innovation or achieve results. We should carefully and meticulously judge the advantages, disadvantages, and risks of nanopesticide; regulate and guide the development of nanopesticide via policy support; introduce the soonest applicable industry policies, which are improved constantly in the course of implementation to encourage innovation and promote product upgrading and industrial transformation. Enterprises and practitioners in different sectors of the industry chain need to jointly promote the progress of the development of nanopesticides through continued cooperation and exchange, such as the research and development of ultra-efficient adjuvants, exploration and application of new equipment, application of new processes and the deep industry-school-research collaboration. 

What is PilarBio’s positioning and development plan in the field of nanopesticides? Can you predict the future of the nanopesticide industry sector?

PilarBio adheres to the corporate mission of ″Continuously Innovate for Quality Harvest″ is committed to developing and applying novel formulations, novel products and novel technologies to create value for customers and users. We are continually working on the development of nanopesticides. We are spending a lot of manpower and material resources to develop nanopesticides, having built a nanopesticide-dedicated brand – PilarNano^®, following the previous brand PilarCore^®. To this end, our development plan for nanopesticide includes: 1) Upgrading the technology of the existing products, especially protective fungicides and systemic insecticides to increase the number of nanopesticides, having so far determined more than 30 nano products for research and development; 2) Integration of nanotechnology with rest of formulations such as the nano dry suspension, nano microcapsule suspension, nano oil suspension, in particular, the nano-microcapsule suspension for which lab exploration, efficacy and safety testing have been carried out, while Nano-Pilarxanil^®  (dimethomorph.cymoxanil 70% DF) has been validated for mass production; 3) In-depth study of the synergistic mechanism of nanopesticides to explore and refine the additional application value of nanopesticides; 4) Global layout of nanopesticides, striving to establish the brand image of ″nano pesticide made in China, nano pesticide made by PILAR.″

Going forward, the nanopesticide industry sector is destined to become the next key area of competition, which, through technological innovation and the effort of the administration departments, is expected to drive the implementation of the initiative of pesticide-use- decrease and pesticide-efficiency-increase to a new level, establishing nanopesticides as a new pesticide category In addition, by accumulating many nanopesticide technologies, Chinese companies are expected to achieve ″overtake in corners″ further to enhance their influence in the global formulation industry. It is believed that after long-term technical accumulation and market promotion as well as the continuous improvement and standardization in administration, the development and competition in the nanopesticide industry will become regulated and operate in an orderly manner. We firmly believe in the ″long-run practice″ to truly make innovation and create value for users, which we believe will be a commercial success; enterprises that are just ″speculating and hyping without innovation and promotion″ will be just a short-lived show.

This interview was published in AgroPages '2024 Formulation&Adjuvant Technology' magazine. Click the following picture to Read/Download. 

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