SINVOCHEM: Dedicated to Eco-Friendly Adjuvants and Customer Oriented Service, Seeking Broader International Cooperation

Date:05-17-2021

It has been a major concern in the agrochemical industry that how to reduce the use of pesticide and fertilizer while enhancing their efficacy. Moreover, driven by China’s plan to achieve negative growth of chemical fertilizer and pesticide use, the change in planting patterns pesticide spraying technology, agricultural adjuvant is embracing new opportunities of development, putting adjuvants into a period of rapid growth. This is very appealing to adjuvant players in China and overseas. As a leading technology-driven enterprise with innovation gene, SINVOCHEM stands out from the competition, referred to as a “dark horse”. We expect SINVOCHEM to constantly breakthrough technical barriers and the limit of innovation, making its contributions to the sustainable development of global agriculture.

A few days ago, a journalist of AgroPages visited SINVOCHEM and conducted an interview with Dr. James Qin, CTO of SINVOCHEM, who accompanied a workshop tour in its internationally advanced agrochemical lab and production base, where a closer look was taken at SINVOCHEM’s customer service philosophy and strong technical force as well as its low-profile, practical and innovative spirit behind the fast growth of the company.

Dr. Qin says that SINVOCHEM is committed to the sustainable development concept, using recyclable green materials for synthesis of biodegradable pesticide adjuvants; Operated under “application scenario-oriented” service philosophy, its R & D center has realized simulation of mass production of formulations and bioassay indoor, which enables the company to provide precision service to its customers. Based on RAFT (Reversible Addition-Fragmentation Chain Transfer Polymerization) technology, SINVOCHEM has successfully commercialized a series of products leading the agrochemical industry, known as polycarboxylate dispersants, vegetable oil-based polyether polyol and translocation enhancing tank mix adjuvants. SINVOCHEM will be continuously dedicated to development of green adjuvants and precision service for better pesticide efficacy.

Dr. James Qin
CTO and Founder of SINVOCHEM

Dedicated to agrochemical adjuvants for 13 years, facilitating better delivery of pesticide efficacy

“To provide customers with green adjuvants and precision services for better delivery of pesticide efficacy; to become a respectable agricultural adjuvant manufacturer” is the mission and vision of SINVOCHEM.

Having a focused value proposition is a common ground for most successful enterprises. Since its inception in 2008, SINVOCHEM has focused itself on agricultural adjuvant development. Sticking to its original vision for 13 years, SINVOCHEM has now grown into a national high-tech enterprise specialized in the development, production and sales of built-in and tank-mix adjuvants. SINVOCHEM has been extending its oversea business step by step to Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, Australia, Eastern Europe and South America, providing more than 600 customers worldwide with green adjuvants accompanied by precision services.

Currently, SINVOCHEM’s products consist of dispersant, wetting agent, emulsifier, defoamer, thickener and tank-mix compatibilizer. However, the gradually enriched products, increased customer base and expanding oversea market require SINVOCHEM to elevate its production capacity. 2022 will witness a great increase in SINVOCHEM's procution capacity, which is expected to exceed 100,000 tons.  Its market share of adjuvants for mainstream pesticide formulations in China will be fundamentally elevated. Market share of dry flowable (DF) and suspension concentrate (SC), for example, is estimated to reach 60-70% and 30% respectively.

Dr. Qin stresses that, in addition to agricultural solutions, SINVOCHEM has extended its products and service to more challenging realm of biological pesticides and pesticide-fertilizer mixtures with positive results achieved.

Figure 1. SC formulation salon for overseas customers

Committed to differentiated innovative solutions, fulfilling customer’s multi-scenario requirement

SINVOCHEM has set up a platform for formulation processing and field tests. This enables miniaturization of customer application scenarios in R&D labs. Meanwhile, SINVOCHEM also strengthens its interaction with customers in order to comprehensively improve its capability to process formulations, reduce use of pesticides and enhance efficacy.

Dr. Qin holds the view that a product is deemed a quality one only when it meets application scenario requirement, he also believes that digitalization of droplet delivery process would increase the accuracy of pesticide efficacy study. On this basis, SINVOCHEM sets up an application scenario-based platform for data collection, data analysis and data application of droplet interfacical delivery behaviors, facilitates study of relation between adjuvant structure and delivery behavior. This will effectively enhance the controllability of droplet delivery and increase the pesticide efficacy.

Guided by the above perception, SINVOCHEM has engineered a series of pesticide adjuvants covering built-in and tank-mix adjuvants, which include polycarboxylates, block polyethers, naphthalene sulfonate formaldehyde condensates and wetting agents such as non-ionic polyether, sulfonate and phosphate as well as modified organosilicon and modified vegetable oil-based tank-mix synergist.  

SINVOCHEM's advanced controllable polymerization technology can precisely control product molecular structure. SP-27001 from polycarboxylate dispersant series improves the processing efficiency of SC formulations;  SP-OD3498D improves storage stability of OD formulations by inhibiting crystal growth; cationic dispersant SP-3275 assists SC formulations with high electrolyte tolerance and low temperature tolerance to ensure compatibility with different tank-mix formulations; SP-DF2222 increases the high temperature tolerance in the processing of DF formulations; SP-DF2238 eases processing for DF formulations using low-melting-point of AIs. So far, the polycarboxylate series have been successfully applied to pesticide formulations SC, FS, OD, SE, CS, EW, WG, WP, DF, etc..

The delivery of pesticide molecules starts from dispersion or emulsification, spatial delivery of droplet from nozzle to the target, interfacial delivery on the target and in vivo delivery of pesticide molecules when necessary. It is admirable that SINVOCHEM’s customer application scenario-based application and innovation tactics can mimic application scenarios of customers. For example, DF formulation piloting system accurately simulates industrial processing scenario; low-speed wind tunnel simulates outdoor spraying scenario to identify environmental impact on deposition on the target site.

Figure 2. Aerial application-oriented droplet assessment wind tunnel

SINVOCHEM has established a system that collects all data generated during the whole delivery process, and is investigating the relationship between pesticide molecular delivery behavior and pesticide liquid interfacial data, as well as correlation between actual application and field tests. The company has launched a series of tank-mix adjuvants, such as tank-mix compatibilizer SP-6900, which improves the suspension stability of various formulations under aerial applications; vegetable oil based adjuvant, SP-4506, which effectively reduces evaporation rate and increases droplet deposition while keeping modest wetting, spreading and anti-drifting performance; Super spreader SP-4026, which presents good compatibility with soybean oil and methyl oleate to significantly improve the droplet anti-splashing and spreading properties at a dose of 0.03% (2-10 times higher area coverage); cationic adjuvant SP-4806, which promotes the delivery of pesticide molecules in plant with enhanced bioactivity of pyraclostrobin and triazole pesticides.

Figure 3. Field trial by drone spray

It is getting more difficult to commercialize novel pesticide molecules, posing an increasing challenge on pesticide compounding and pesticide efficiency. Interaction between different pesticides makes it hard to prepare stable formulations, especially for AIs with low melting point, or those are highly water-soluble or easy to decompose. Besides, different local application environments, application rates and crop characteristics require specialized pesticide formulations to adapt to customers' application scenarios. SINVOCHEM’s application scenario simulation system enables quick simulation of real formulation and application scenarios. In combination with adjuvant structure design and synthesis, this system can provide better solutions for pesticide formulation with higher efficacy. It is foreseeable that SINVOCHEM will launch highly designable and versatile polycarboxylate built-in adjuvants as well as tank-mix adjuvants with improved delivery while optimizing its existing products.


Tackling formulation development difficulties to make technical breakthroughs

The quality of a formulation depends on many factors including formula composition, properties of AI(s), formulation processing, application scenarios and storage conditions. To cope with the difficulties existing in formulation processing, while combining its own technical strength and customer needs, SINVOCHEM has endeavored to make both theoretic and practical breakthroughs, which are highly regarded and trusted by customers.

During the interview, Dr. Qin shared with us some typical cases. DF formulation has developed rapidly in recent years as it is eco-friendly, highly efficient and suitable for aerial spraying. However, DF formulation produced via the widely-used spray granulation process nowadays has a poor wettability which results in a prolonged wetting time and granules accumulation in water. To tackle the poor wettability problem, SINVOCHEM's R & D team, after numerous experiments, found that changing granule morphology and adjusting formula can effectively solve the problem of poor wettability at the root.  Accordingly, SINVOCHEM developed the “continuous-fluidized-bed DF formulation processing technology” to change the particle morphology. At the same time, two new types of formula solutions have been proposed – coffee-colored formulation (with polycarboxylate dispersant supplemented with lignosulfonate dispersant) and white-colored or off-white-colored formulation (with polycarboxylate dispersant supplemented with naphthalene sulfonate dispersant).

It is well known that various problems may occur during the processing of low-melting -point AIs to DF formulations, including melting of AIs during drying, undispersible granules, poor storage stability and difficulty to process high loading preparations. In response to these issues, SINVOCHEM developed a special polycarboxylate dispersant SP-DF2238, whose structure is designed taking full consideration of processing flows of DF formulations. Supported by fluidized bed granulation process, SP-DF2238 thoroughly overcomes these difficulties when processing low-melting-point AIs into DF formulations.

Figure 4. Disintegration of DF formulation dropping into water added with SP-DF2238

By virtue of good mass transfer and heat transfer efficiency, microfluidic continuous technology can realize precise control on process conditions. In 2020, SINVOCHEM developed China’s first 5-ton/day continuous Capsule Suspensions (CS) production line, which has been put into use by a pesticide manufacturer. At present, the production line can produce pyrethroids, amides, organophosphorus and pendimethalin capsule suspensions. The company also has made a technical breakthrough in lythidathion 65% Capsulated Dry Flowable (CDF).

SP-7450 is a polycarboxylate dispersant specially designed for continuous microfluidic process. It is suitable to produce various microcapsules by successfully solving the problem of encystation. Microcapsules are not meant only to encapsulate pesticide AIs, SINVOCHEM has conducted a great deal of researches on regulation of the release rate by changing interfacial property and the capsule wall property. For example, synergist SP-6535 can regulate the release rate of the microcapsules. Take pyraclostrobin 9% CS as an example. When it is added by 5-10%, the microcapsule is diluted in water for spray in rice field, the microcapsule that has dropped into water does not rupture, reducing harm to aquatic life. On the other side, pesticide agent falling onto rice leaf ruptures and the rupture rate increases with the evaporation of water and increased dose of SP-6535.

Working with partners to provide upgraded service, seeking broader international cooperation

As customer’s requirement for innovative products and technical service become both diversified and specific, the delivery requirement stricter, SINVOCHEM has to constantly enhance its overall strength.

Besides offering assistance to agents or end customers in establishing a fully functional agrochemical laboratory and providing technical training free of charge, SINVOCHEM is looking at chances of cooperation with more partners to set up branches in different countries and regions to carry out business operations in a more intensive, efficient manner to meet the needs of customers. For this reason, SINVOCHEM expects continuing expansion of businesses globally, looking for agents or end customers that are competent in promotion of the products of the company, or partners with strong market position in certain countries or regions.

If you are interested in cooperation with SINVOCHEM, please contact:

Alex. Lee |SINVOCHEM
Email: alex@sinvochem.com
Tel: 0086-15094373731

This interview will be published in AgroPages '2021 Formulation & Adjuvant Technology' magazine to be published this May.

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