Horticultural oils are refined petroleum fractions (mineral oils) widely used as insecticides. [1] [2] [3] They are used against various insects (aphids, mites, beetle larvae, leaf miners, thrips, leafhopper, whitefly, scale) on fruit, vegetable and other crops, as well as against powdery mildew. [2] They are approved for use in organic farming under the U.S. National Organic Program. [2]
Mineral oils were long believed to act by blocking the spiracles of the insect and thus causing suffocation. However recently several additional effects were described. [1] IRAC categorises mineral oil in group UNM (non-specific mechanical and physical disruptors). Resistance to mineral oil has never been observed. [1]
Horticultural oils are prepared from crude petroleum fractions by distillation and various chemical processes. [1] [2] [3] This removes or hydrogenates the unsaturated (alkene and aromatic) molecules, which cause plant damage (phytotoxicity), and delivers the C20-C25 fractions, which are the most effective insecticides. Mineral oils have been used since the 19th century, but the grades used then were cruder, and they could not be used for all applications due to phytotoxicity. [3] The grades of oil are given by the amount of unsaturated components (unsulfonated residues UR), by the distillation temperature (°C), by the viscosity (SUS), and by the carbon number (nCy). Vegetable oils have been shown to kill insects, but they are more phytotoxic than mineral oils. [2]
Global marked data is not available, but reliable data is provided by the state of California. [4] Mineral oil is the most used insecticide, both in acrage and in volume. 34,508,857 pounds (15,652,972 kg) of mineral oil was sprayed on 4,543,066 acres (about 1.8 million hectares).
1 to 4% solutions in water are sprayed, which is hundreds of times more than modern synthetic insecticides. Mineral oil is correspondingly cheaper.
There are many synonyms used for horticultural oil. Often they are not fully synonymous but refer to different grades of oil.
The following names can be found: petroleum distillates, refined petroleum distillates, spray oils, petroleum derived spray oils or PDSOs, petroleum spray oils or PSOs, hydrocarbon oils, lubricating oils, narrow-range oils, white mineral oils, aliphatic solvents, paraffin oils, paraffinic oils, mineral oils, horticultural oils, agricultural oils, supreme oil, Volck oils, dormant oils, foliage or foliar oils, or summer oils. superior oils. [1] [2]
Dormant oil is used on woody plants during the dormant season. Originally used cruder oils were used, but the term now refers to the time of application. Summer oil or foliar oil refers to its use on plants when foliage is present, for which cruder grades could not be used.
The US EPA recognises hundreds of grades of mineral oil. [1] White oils are the most refined and most consistent of the mineral oils, and are approved for pharmaceutical or food use. [1]
Mineral oil has low acute and sub-acute toxicity in laboratory animals. The US EPA classified aliphatic solvents as Toxicity Category IV (lowest toxicity—regarded as practically non-toxic). [2]
It is non-toxic to pollinators, fish, and birds. [2] It is highly toxic to aquatic invertebrates, but not very mobile in soil. [1]
Kerosene, or paraffin, is a combustible hydrocarbon liquid which is derived from petroleum. It is widely used as a fuel in aviation as well as households. Its name derives from κηρός (kērós) meaning "wax", and was registered as a trademark by Nova Scotia geologist and inventor Abraham Gesner in 1854 before evolving into a generic trademark. It is sometimes spelled kerosine in scientific and industrial usage.
Insecticides are pesticides used to kill insects. They include ovicides and larvicides used against insect eggs and larvae, respectively. The major use of insecticides is in agriculture, but they are also used in home and garden settings, industrial buildings, for vector control, and control of insect parasites of animals and humans.
Naphtha is a flammable liquid hydrocarbon mixture. Generally, it is a fraction of crude oil, but it can also be produced from natural-gas condensates, petroleum distillates, and the fractional distillation of coal tar and peat. In some industries and regions, the name naphtha refers to crude oil or refined petroleum products such as kerosene or diesel fuel.
An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where petroleum is transformed and refined into products such as gasoline (petrol), diesel fuel, asphalt base, fuel oils, heating oil, kerosene, liquefied petroleum gas and petroleum naphtha. Petrochemical feedstock like ethylene and propylene can also be produced directly by cracking crude oil without the need of using refined products of crude oil such as naphtha. The crude oil feedstock has typically been processed by an oil production plant. There is usually an oil depot at or near an oil refinery for the storage of incoming crude oil feedstock as well as bulk liquid products. In 2020, the total capacity of global refineries for crude oil was about 101.2 million barrels per day.
Mineral oil is any of various colorless, odorless, light mixtures of higher alkanes from a mineral source, particularly a distillate of petroleum, as distinct from usually edible vegetable oils.
White spirit (AU, UK and Ireland) or mineral spirits (US, Canada), also known as mineral turpentine (AU/NZ/ZA), turpentine substitute, and petroleum spirits, is a petroleum-derived clear liquid used as a common organic solvent in painting. There are also terms for specific kinds of white spirit, including Stoddard solvent and solvent naphtha (petroleum). White spirit is often used as a paint thinner, or as a component thereof, though paint thinner is a broader category of solvent. Odorless mineral spirits (OMS) have been refined to remove the more toxic aromatic compounds, and are recommended for applications such as oil painting.
A visbreaker is a processing unit in an oil refinery whose purpose is to minimize the quantity of residual oil produced in the distillation of crude oil and to increase the yield of more valuable middle distillates by the refinery. A visbreaker thermally cracks large hydrocarbon molecules in the oil by heating in a furnace to lower its viscosity and to produce small quantities of light hydrocarbons.. The process name of "visbreaker" refers to the fact that the process lowers the viscosity of the residual oil. The process is non-catalytic.
Petroleum products are materials derived from crude oil (petroleum) as it is processed in oil refineries. Unlike petrochemicals, which are a collection of well-defined usually pure organic compounds, petroleum products are complex mixtures. Most petroleum is converted into petroleum products, which include several classes of fuels.
Asphaltenes are molecular substances that are found in crude oil, along with resins, aromatic hydrocarbons, and saturates. The word "asphaltene" was coined by Jean-Baptiste Boussingault in 1837 when he noticed that the distillation residue of some bitumens had asphalt-like properties. Asphaltenes in the form of asphalt or bitumen products from oil refineries are used as paving materials on roads, shingles for roofs, and waterproof coatings on building foundations.
Non-pesticidal Management (NPM) describes various pest-control techniques which do not rely on pesticides. It is used in organic production of foodstuff, as well as in other situations in which the introduction of toxins is undesirable. Instead of the use of synthetic toxins, pest control is achieved by biological means.
White oil is an insecticide spray used for controlling a wide range of insect pests in the garden. The spray works by blocking the breathing pores of insects, causing suffocation and death. It is effective in the control of aphids, scale, mealybug, mites, citrus leafminer and other smooth skinned caterpillars. "White oil" is also an alternative name for mineral oil.
Insecticidal soap is used to control many plant insect pests. Soap has been used for more than 200 years as an insect control. Because insecticidal soap works on direct contact with pests via the disruption of cell membranes when the insect is penetrated with fatty acids, the insect's cells leak their contents causing the insect to dehydrate and die. Insecticidal soap is sprayed on plants until the entire plant is saturated because the insecticidal properties of the soap occurs when the solution is wet. Soaps have a low mammalian toxicity and are therefore considered safe to be used around children and pets, and may be used in organic farming.
Naphthenic acids (NAs) are mixtures of several cyclopentyl and cyclohexyl carboxylic acids with molecular weights of 120 to well over 700 atomic mass units. The main fractions are carboxylic acids with a carbon backbone of 9 to 20 carbons. McKee et al. claim that "naphthenic acids (NAs) are primarily cycloaliphatic carboxylic acids with 10 to 16 carbons", although acids containing up to 50 carbons have been identified in heavy petroleum.
The BPRefinery (Kent) was an oil refinery on the Isle of Grain in Kent. It was commissioned in 1953 and had a maximum processing capacity of 11 million tonnes of crude oil per year. It was decommissioned in August 1982.
Crude oil is extracted from the bedrock before being processed in several stages, removing natural contaminants and undesirable hydrocarbons. This separation process produces mineral oil, which can in turn be denoted as paraffinic, naphthenic or aromatic. The differences between these different types of oils are not clear-cut, but mainly depend on the predominant hydrocarbon types in the oil. Paraffinic oil, for example, contains primarily higher alkanes, whereas naphthenic oils have a high share of cyclic alkanes in the mixture.
Crop oil or crop oil concentrates are petroleum-based additives that are used as adjuvants to increase the efficacy of pesticides in agricultural applications. Crop oils are composed primarily of paraffin or naphtha-based petroleum oil and crop oil concentrates are composed of emulsifiable petroleum-based oil. The addition of a surfactant and/or emulsifier is commonly added in order to increase spray dispersal and uptake by both plant and insect hosts in pesticides and herbicides.
Petroleum refining processes are the chemical engineering processes and other facilities used in petroleum refineries to transform crude oil into useful products such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), gasoline or petrol, kerosene, jet fuel, diesel oil and fuel oils.
Petroleum naphtha is an intermediate hydrocarbon liquid stream derived from the refining of crude oil with CAS-no 64742-48-9. It is most usually desulfurized and then catalytically reformed, which rearranges or restructures the hydrocarbon molecules in the naphtha as well as breaking some of the molecules into smaller molecules to produce a high-octane component of gasoline.
Triazofos is a chemical compound used in acaricides, insecticides, and nematicides.
Base oils are used to manufacture products including lubricating greases, motor oil and metal processing fluids. Different products require different compositions and properties in the oil. One of the most important factors is the liquid’s viscosity at various temperatures. Whether or not a crude oil is suitable to be made into a base oil is determined by the concentration of base oil molecules as well as how easily these can be extracted.
