Surfactant effects on environmental behavior of pesticides

The potential effects of adjuvants, including surfactants used in pesticide formulation, have been extensively studied for many small organic chemicals, but similar investigation on pesticides is limited in most cases. Solubilizing effects leading to the apparently increased water solubility of a pesticide are commonly known through the preparation of formulations, but fundamental profiles, especially for a specific monodisperse surfactant, are not fully studied. Reduced volatilization of a pesticide from the formulation can be explained by analogy of a very simple organic chemical, but the actual mechanism for the pesticide is still obscure. In contrast, from the point of view of avoiding groundwater contamination with a pesticide, adsorption/desorption profiles in the presence of surfactants and adjuvants have been examined extensively as well as pesticide mobility in the soil column. The basic mechanism in micelle-catalyzed hydrolysis is well known, and theoretical approaches including the PPIE model have succeeded in explaining the observed effects of surfactants, but its application to pesticides is also limited. Photolysis, especially in an aqueous phase, is in the same situation. The dilution effect in the real environment would show these effects on hydrolysis and photolysis to be much less than expected from the laboratory basic studies, but more information is necessary to examine the practical extent of the effects in an early stage of applying a pesticide formulation to crops and soil. Many adjuvants, including surfactants, are biodegradable in the soil environment, and thus their effects on the biodegradation of a pesticide in soil and sediment may be limited, as demonstrated by field trials. Not only from the theoretical but also the practical aspect, the foliar uptake of pesticide in the presence of adjuvants has been investigated extensively and some prediction on the ease of foliar uptake can be realized in relation to the formulation technology. However, effect on root uptake of pesticides is to be further investigated. In an aqueous environment more or less contaminated by various chemicals such as detergents and their degradates, it is necessary to investigate the effect of adjuvants on uptake, bioconcentration, and trophic transfer of pesticides for better understanding of pesticide contamination of aquatic species in the aquatic environment.