Dinotefuran Insecticide Overview | Generated by AI

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Question: What is 呋虫胺 (fú chóng àn)?

Answer

呋虫胺 (dinotefuran) is a neonicotinoid insecticide developed by Mitsui Chemicals in Japan. Chemically it’s a nitroguanidine-type neonicotinoid — its tetrahydrofuran ring substitutes for the chloropyridyl/chlorothiazolyl groups found in earlier neonicotinoids like imidacloprid, so it’s sometimes called a “furanicotine” (呋喃烟碱) in Chinese literature.

Mechanism: Dinotefuran works by inhibiting nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, disrupting the insect nervous system — it’s a nAChR agonist with an EC50 of 7.8 μM, causing overstimulation, paralysis, and death in target pests.

Key facts:

Property Value
CAS No. 165252-70-0
Molecular formula C7H14N4O3, MW 202.21
Melting point 107.5°C
Mammalian toxicity Very low — acute oral LD50 in rats is 2450 mg/kg (male), 2275 mg/kg (female); non-mutagenic, non-carcinogenic, non-teratogenic
Bee toxicity Highly toxic to honey bees by all routes of administration, though the chiral isomers differ sharply — the dextrorotatory enantiomer provides insecticidal activity while the levorotatory enantiomer is highly toxic to honey bees
Environmental fate Nontoxic to birds, mammals, fish and algae, but highly toxic to marine/estuarine mysid shrimp; aerobic biodegradation half-life ~81.5 days in soil
Regulatory status Not banned broadly, though Oregon temporarily restricted its use in 2013 pending investigation of mass bee deaths

Common uses: Broad-spectrum control of aphids, whiteflies, thrips, leafhoppers, leafminers, sawflies, mole crickets, white grubs, lacebugs, weevils, beetles, mealybugs, and cockroaches — used in agriculture (especially rice against aphids and leafhoppers, including resistant strains), residential pest control, and in veterinary flea/tick products for pets.

You’ll recognize it if you garden — it’s the active ingredient behind those “小白药/小蓝瓶” (white powder/blue bottle) soil-drench products Chinese gardening bloggers use for potting soil sterilization, and it’s in consumer products like Ortho Tree and Shrub Insect Control granules in the US.

If you’re asking in a dev/agent context (e.g. parsing a pesticide database, MSDS, or agricultural product catalog) rather than out of general curiosity, let me know — happy to help you build a scraper/parser for CAS registry data or pesticide residue lookups.

References

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