Environmental Fate of Esfenvalerate

This document provides a review of the environmental fate of esfenvalerate, chemical name: (S)-αcyano-3-phenoxybenzyl-(S)-2-(4-chlorophenyl)-3-methylbutyrate. Esfenvalerate is a mixture of four stereoisomers (Table 1), enriched with the S,S-isomer, the most insecticidally active isomer. The parent mixture, fenvalerate, is a mixture of the same four isomers in relatively equal proportions (Table 1). Thus, this review of esfenvalerate contains data from studies documenting the environmental fate of fenvalerate. The toxicity of the two-isomer mixtures to insects and a variety of non-target organisms has been well documented; however, the environmental chemistry and fate of both mixtures is comparable.