Agrochemical sales is a vast world market which exceeded $119 billion in sales in 2009 and is expected to grown at a rate of 10.4% in the next 3 to 5 years. China and India are the world's largest users of agrochemicals. This has allowed Asia to dominate the market and account for 43% of sales. The US is the second largest revenue generator, bringing in approximately 20% of global agrochemical sales. Thus it is of great importance to continue to improve the technology used to develop novel US based agrochemicals in order to remain a competitive entity in this market. Furthermore, the production of novel herbicides and pesticides has lead to an increase in the number of chiral agrochemicals. Hence it is becoming more essential that the means to produce enantiomerically pure agrochemicals is improved and expanded. The most important tool that will be used in the development of single-enantiomer agrochemicals are chiral selectors or chiral stationary phases (CSP), which are employed during enantioselective separation processes (i.e. high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), super-critical fluid chromatography (SFC), and preparative chromatography). Currently, there are no CSPs that can separate all chiral agrochemicals. For this reason, it is critical that novel CSPs are developed as to further aid in the production of more effective and safer novel pesticides and herbicides. The proposed research will result in the production of a novel CSP that can be used to help enantiomerically purify agrochemicals. This purification will allow for safer and more effective herbicides and pesticides. In the public's interest, this research can be applied to nearly all USDA strategic goals. Being able to produce crops more effectively through the use of highly purified chiral agrochemicals will: allow American agriculture to remain internationally strong; allow rural framers to be more productive and successful; afford enhanced protection for crops and further secure our ability to continually meet the hunger needs of Americans; and improve the nation's health and protect our resources through the 50% reduction in environmental contaminants that occurs when racemic chiral agrochemicals are used.
