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Aromatic
Solvents for Agrochemicals

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As the earth’s population grows, arable land decreases and the impact of climate change is increasingly felt, agriculture strives to meet the rising demand for food, feed and fuel. With finite land resources, every hectare counts.

Crop protection products, commonly referred to as pesticides or agrochemical products, play a vital role in controlling the pests and diseases that threaten crop yield and therefore our food supply. Sustainable agriculture depends on modern tools, technologies and innovative agrochemicals to increase crop yields and crop quality.

The agrochemical industry continues to be very innovative in developing new technologies that are

  • safe to operators and consumers,
  • easy to use,
  • effective,
  • cost-efficient,
  • help protect the environment while
  • meeting changing regulations.

Haltermann Carless is a key player in the supply of heavy aromatic solvents to agrochemical formulators

We partner with major agrochemical producers and toll manufacturers worldwide and understand their specific requirements for consistently high-quality solvents for their active ingredients (AIs). Our Low Naphthalene (LN) and Extra Low Naphthalene (XLN) aromatic solvent grades are a great example on how applicators and the environment can be further protected.

Haltermann Carless has produced the Caromax® portfolio, which is based on C10 and C12 aromatics, for more than 70 years. Our research and development activities proactively collaborate with formulators to help them achieve their targets of developing suitable agrochemicals that protect plants and crop yields. Our recent study on the solvency performance of our products fuels us to drive tailored solutions for our agrochemical customers.

Heavy Aromatic Solvents for Agrochemicals

Contact

Daniel Jeffery
Senior Vice President – Special Aromatics
Email: djeffery@h-c-s-group.com

 

Sales Contacts

Silvo Ponten
Special Aromatics – Global exc. North America
Phone: +31 74 267 44 60
Mobile: +31 613 36 51 26
Email: sponten@h-c-s-group.com
 
Bryan Schorr
Sales Manager – Special Aromatics, North America
Mobile: +1 314 704 60 04
Email: bschorr@h-c-s-group.com

Brochures

You can find more product information in our media library:

Go to the product brochures

 

Strong, sustainable relationships with customers and suppliers have enabled Haltermann Carless to grow into a global, reliable producer of C10 and C12 aromatics.

Tailor-made heavy aromatic solvent formulations

Haltermann Carless experts have a passion for working closely with customers to develop tailored heavy aromatic solvent formulations. These bespoke formulations are manufactured to a formulator’s active ingredient(s) solvency boundaries.

Support with approval and registration procedures

Our customers benefit from our assistance in approval and registration processes of their crop protection products.

Support

Our successful and long-term cooperation with many of our customers ensures that we can support them right from the start by identifying the best solutions to technical challenges and logistic demands.

Registration and approval

Our Caromax® aromatic solvents are all registered and approved by the EPA, PMRA and are fully REACH registered. 

Benefits for agrochemcial customers at a glance: 

  • Tailor-made heavy aromatic solvent solutions
  • High purity and consistent, stable solvent quality
  • Fast and accurate laboratory suppor
  • Strong technical support for product development
  • Comprehensive expertise in continuous production and distribution
  • Timely and qualified transport taking into account all regional and international safety regulations
  • More than 70 years expertise in production of Caromax® heavy aromatic solvents
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Our products for agrochemicals

For our customers in the agrochemical industry we offer the following products:

  • Caromax® 20
  • Caromax® 20 LN,
  • Caromax® 20 XLN,
  • Caromax® 28,
  • Caromax® 28 LN
  • Caromax® 28 XLN
Haltermann Carless-Graphic Caromax Heavy Aromatics_en

Heavy aromatic solvents play an important role in the agrochemical industry. They are used as an inert solvent in agrochemical formulations to keep the active ingredients in solution and stable over time and varying storage and transport conditions. With our Caromax® 20, Caromax® 20 LN, Caromax® 20 XLN, Caromax® 28, Caromax® 28 LN, Caromax® 28 XLN, Haltermann Carless offers a comprehensive product range of special aromatic fluids for crop protection products. Our products are more than 99% aromatic purity. The increased usage of C12 aromatics offers multiple benefits to the users and the environment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is Haltermann Carless’ aim to continually optimise the performance of our Caromax® grades in order to offer formulators of crop protection products the right balance between suitable Active Ingredients (AIs) and solvency and thus achieving benefits with regards to product performance, cost-efficiency and environmental impact.

 

Haltermann Carless supports the development of modern crop protection products.

How we help to improve product performance, cost-efficiency and environmental impact

Example are:

  • Our Low Naphthalene (LN) and Extra Low Naphthalene (XLN) aromatic solvent grades enable the final product to meet stringent regulatory requirements. 
  • Due to their excellent solvency, our Caromax® grades can be utilized in even the most sensitive agrochemical formulations. 
  • With our tailor-made C12 product grades we help our customers to achieve cost-savings while improving their CO2 footprint of their end product by using products with less solvents.
  • We are currently conducting extensive research to develop bio-based solvents to complement our existing Caromax® portfolio.

 

Different formulations optimised for the agrochemicals market

All Caromax® products are a complex mixture of heavy aromatics molecules. The composition of our solvents has a significant impact on the solvency properties and long-term stability of the formulated agrochemical product. Years of formulation experience has led us to our highly specialised Caromax® portfolio – optimised for the agrochemicals market.

Emulsifiable Concentrate (EC) and Oil Dispersant (OD) formulations 

Being compliant with global regulatory requirements and having a wide range of approvals globally with many agrochemical producers, the majority of our Caromax® heavy aromatic solvents are applied in the development and production of Emulsifiable Concentrate (EC) and Oil Dispersant (OD) formulations of agrochemical formulations.

Caromax® solvent naphtha for agrochemical formulations

Our Caromax® grades have a typical aromatic content of 99.9 %. They are offered in two main boiling ranges and are marketed as Caromax® 20 and Caromax® 28. Additionally, Haltermann Carless offers two levels of naphthalene depleted grades in both, typically with less than 1 % (Low Naphthalene) and less than 0.1 % (Extra Low Naphthalene) to meet environmental aspects. 

Advantages of Caromax® heavy aromatic solvents:

  • Consistent high quality with an aromatic purity of 99 % and more
  • Excellent solvency
  • Long term stability for active ingredients (AI)
  • Stable multifunctional ingredients
  • Broad portfolio including extra low naphthalene grades
Advantages of Caromax® aromatic solvents

High solvency is critical to effective performance of agrochemicals

The right ingredients in formulations are key for the effective performance of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides. The formulation helps position the action of the Active Ingredient (AI) to it’s target site.However, crop protection formulations can be affected in numerous ways by the different solvent compositions, depending on the type of formulations. In EC formulations, for instance, cold stability is affected by the solvent composition where polarity is key in solubilising the active ingredient.

Haltermann Carless study: Providing the right balance between Active Ingredients (AIs) and solvency

Dissolution Curve of a Broad Spectrum Fungicide

C12 aromatic solvents are the predominant hydrocarbons for stabilising and solubilising OD and EC formulations. C12 solvents are preferred over C10 solvents for safety and handling reasons. 

In view of this Haltermann Carless has conducted a solvency and solubility study to further evaluate the behaviour of aromatic solvents and their influence on the solvency power to agrochemical formulations.

In our study, dissolution curves were generated for an active ingredient in various Caromax® solvents. By monitoring the temperature of solvent against the weight of active ingredient gradually added, we were able to generate and compare the dissolution curves for each Caromax® solvent. 

Whilst the method of our study needs further development and adaptation to various physical and chemical qualities of active ingredients, it provides some sensible initial results: 

The Caromax® products whose curves reach the top right of the graph offer the best solvency for that particular active ingredient. This indicated that a move to C12 aromatics may provide optimisation for this specific active ingredient. 

In the agrochemical market there are several hundreds of active ingredients in use. To further optimise the performance of herbicides, fungicides and pesticides by finding the right balance between suitable AIs and solvency, Haltermann Carless puts a lot of efforts in research activities. The results will support our formulators and customers to select the most suitable Caromax® heavy aromatic solvent.

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Laboratories: Confirming high quality standards

In a world where most agrochemical formulators have been dependent on a handful of hydrocarbon solvent products with fixed properties, they have had to develop the formulation around the solvent. Haltermann Carless takes the contrasting approach. Our ambition is to work closely with our customers in order to develop heavy aromatic solvent formulations customised to the formulator’s active ingredients solvency boundaries. Thus offering the best possible solutions to our customer requirements is one of our main focus area of our research and development activities.

Another important pillar of our development work and safeguarding our high quality standards are our laboratories at all of our production sites. Our laboratories make a significant contribution to constantly testing and confirming our quality promise. The entire production process, starting with the selection of raw materials, through processing, storage and delivery, is analysed and monitored closely.

Haltermann Carless Laboratory Harwich

The dedicated laboratory for our heavy aromatic solvents is located in Harwich, next to our production plant. The world class laboratory as well as our experienced employees test and control the chemical and physical composition of our Caromax® heavy aromatic solvents consistently from batch to batch in the short and long term to ensure highest product quality is delivered to our customers in the agrochemical industry. 

The analytical laboratories have extensive skills and know-how in Gas Chromatography (GC/FI, headspace, GC/MS, thermal desorption, reformulyzer, PIONA, HPLC), elemental analysis techniques (atomic absorption, X-ray fluorescence, atomic fluorescence) and spectroscopy (FTIR, UV-Vis).

Haltermann Carless welcomes the opportunity to run joint R&D programs that cater for the legislative, environmental or formulation challenges of the future.

Haltermann Carless Associations

Beyond that we are also engaged in several associations, such as the SIA (Solvent Industry Associations), ESIG (European Solvent Industry Group) and HSPA (Hydrocarbon Solvents Producer Associations). Through our participation in such expert networks and committees, we get involved where important decisions for the future are made.

We support the further development of standards and contribute to new regulations. Our active engagement makes sure that we stay ahead of time and integrate our expertise into the work with our agrochemical customers.

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Supply Chain: Timely delivery and transport under consideration of all safety regulations

Our solvent naphtha is manufactured in our product site in Harwich, one of UK’s East coast ports, with access to the North Sea. This strategic location offers us great benefits with regards to the distribution of our products by sea all over the world.

Our supply chain services:

  • Qualified transport under consideration of all safety regulations
  • Timely delivery
  • Delivery time of 3 days within Europe
  • Intermodal deliveries for supply on demand
  • Dispatch: barrel/drum, IBC, bulk, by rail cars and ships

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Haltermann Carless Harwich Jetty

Haltermann Carless customers benefit from our promise of timely delivery and qualified transport while taking into account all safety rules. It is our concern to pay the same importance on our logistics as we do on our continuous uninterrupted production and high quality manufacturing. For this reason, we work only with qualified haulier and shipping agents being able to provide a proper transport. Our special heavy aromatics are distributed under the customer requirements in different packaging sizes, such as barrels/drums, IBC or bulk. 

Haltermann Carless is in the position to deliver heavy aromatic solvents to customers in Europe in around three days by using intermodal transport and local storage capacity. This allows a high flexibility in production planning. Being located directly at the port, Harwich is a perfect location for also exporting our heavy aromatic solvents to customers all over the world. To meet on our promised delivery times even in the most remote areas, we have additional storage capacities and distribution locations in both North- and South America and Europe.

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More about the services of Haltermann Carless

For generations, we have been offering tailor-made solutions to our customers and have thus established long-standing, close and trustful relationships with our business partners - from suppliers to customers. 

Our traditional values such as customer focusindividuality and future orientation are also consistently implemented in the area of supply chain. 

Learn more about our services!

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Production of heavy aromatic solvents for agrochemicals

Harwich is one of the key production sites within the Haltermann Carless group. Here we manufacture our Caromax® portfolio and from here we export our high-quality heavy aromatic solvents to agrochemical customers around the world. 

Our product site is certified according to ISO 14001 (Environment Management) and ISO 9001 (Quality Management), which demonstrated our ability to consistently provide products and services that meet our customer and regulatory requirements. On top, the Harwich site is certified by ISO 45001 ensuring the occupational health and safety of our employees.

 

Haltermann Carless has the facility to offer tailored solutions for customers
due to our flexibility in scale and production.

Haltermann Carless Harwich

© HCS Group

Production site Harwich

The Harwich site also hosts a well-equipped laboratory with highly qualified engineers. This allows us to conduct on site analysis and to share quick, accurate, reliable testing results with our agrochemical customers. With our premium equipment our partners can rely on our high quality promise and on top, to a fast response to their individual customer requests of special analyses

In recent years, we have made important investments to enhance the sustainability and energy efficiency of our production site in Harwich. We have made significant process improvements to our production units to reduce the energy consumption of our processes, thereby reducing drastically the CO2 footprint per MT produced of a Caromax® product.

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Registration and Certifications

Our Caromax® 20, Caromax® 20 LN, Caromax® 28 and Caromax® 28 LN grades have full registrations worldwide. The heavy aromatic solvents portfolio is approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for use as an inert ingredient in pesticide formulations applied to growing crops. These products are included in the ‘List of Trade Names and Inert Ingredients’ on the EPA’s website. They are also fully approved by the Canadian Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA), allowing them to be used in food crop protection and are on the ‘Published PMRA List of Formulants’.

All of our heavy aromatic solvents grades are fully REACH registered.  

The Haltermann Carless plant in Harwich is certified to ISO 14001, ISO 9001, ISO 45001.

Haltermann Carless Certificates

Certificates

Quality assurance is important to us and our business partners, which is why we attach particular importance to our certificates.

Click here to see all Haltermann Carless certificates:

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