23 September 2026, Delaware, United States: Ashland, a specialty chemicals company headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware, launched agrimer eco-disperse OD, a patented polymeric dispersant built on the company’s Transformed Vegetable Oils (TVO) technology platform and aimed squarely at agrochemical formulators making non-aqueous crop protection products such as suspension concentrates.
The product is designed to stabilize and disperse water-insoluble active ingredients in oil-based or non-aqueous formulations, a formulation challenge that has historically pushed manufacturers toward synthetic, petroleum-derived dispersants. Ashland says agrimer eco-disperse OD is biodegradable and free of microplastics, while improving dispersion stability, leaf adhesion, spray coverage and rain fastness compared with conventional dispersants. The company also says the product reduces active ingredient settling in storage and cuts nozzle clogging during application, two persistent complaints from growers and applicators using suspension concentrate formulations.
Alessandra Faccin, senior vice president and general manager of Ashland’s Life Sciences business, said the launch reflects the company converting sustainable science into differentiated commercial solutions that create value, framing it as part of a broader push to build out the TVO platform beyond its original applications. Jean J. Gulka, global business director for Life Sciences, said the launch demonstrates that the TVO platform can scale, and validates Ashland’s strategy of investing in differentiated, sustainability-linked technologies rather than competing purely on cost with legacy dispersant chemistries.
Ashland is positioning the new dispersant as broadly compatible across suspension concentrate and other non-aqueous crop protection formulation types, and says it offers a competitive cost-in-use profile relative to incumbent synthetic dispersants, an important detail for formulators wary of paying a premium for sustainability-branded ingredients. Samples and commercial quantities are available immediately, and the company says the product will be distributed in more than 100 countries through its existing distribution network, with formulators directed to contact local Ashland representatives to begin qualification work.
The launch lands at a moment when formulators globally are under increasing pressure to reduce synthetic polymer and microplastic content in agricultural products. The European Union’s restriction on intentionally added microplastics, phased in under the EU’s chemicals framework, has already forced reformulation work across several categories of agricultural and consumer products, and similar scrutiny is building in other markets. Adjuvant and formulation-ingredient suppliers, including Ashland’s specialty chemical peers, have been racing to bring bio-based alternatives to market that can match the performance of synthetic dispersants without the same regulatory exposure, and this launch is Ashland’s clearest entry yet into that specific competitive space within crop protection formulation chemistry specifically, as distinct from its established personal care and industrial uses of the same TVO platform.
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