PRODUITS DE CONSERVATION POUR PRODUITS ENSILES

PRESERVATIVES FOR SILAGE

Abrégé anglais

ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE
The use as preservatives for
silage of at least one member selected from acrylic acid,
methacrylic acid or of esters or salts of said acids.

Revendications

THE EMBODIMENTS OF THE INVENTION IN WHICH AN EXCLUSIVE
PROPERTY OR PRIVILEGE IS CLAIMED ARE DEFINED AS FOLLOWS:
1. A silage admixed with at least one member selected
from acrylic acid, methacrylic acid or of esters or salts of
said acids in an mount sufficient to preserve the silage.
2. A material as claimed in claim 1 in which the
alcohol component in the ester is ethylene glycol.
3. A material as claimed in claim 1 in which the
alcohol component in the ester is 1,2-propylene glycol.
4. A material as claimed in claim 1 in which the
alcohol component in the ester is glycerine.
5. A material as claimed in claim 1 in which the
alcohol component in the ester is a monohydric alkanol having
1 to 8 carbon atoms.
6. A material as claimed in claim 1 in which the
alcohol component in the ester is a monohydric alkanol having
1 to 4 carbon atoms.
7. A material as claimed in claim 1 in which the
alcohol component in the ester is ethanol.
8. A material as claimed in claim 1 in which the
basic component in the salt is hexamethylene tetramine.
9. A material as claimed in claim 1 in which the
basic component in the salt is an alkali or alkaline earth metal.
10. A material as claimed in claim 1 in which the
basic component of the salt is sodium potassium or calcium.
11. A material as claimed in claim 1, 2 or 3 in which
acids, esters, or salts are partly in the form of polymers.
12. A material as claimed in claim 1 admixed with 0.01
to 2.0 by weight of the preservative.
13. A material as claimed in claim 1 admixed with 0.2 to
0.08% by weight of the preservative.
14. A material as claimed in claim 1, 2 or 3 which con-
tains at least 12% by weight water.

15. A material as claimed in claim 1, 2 or 3 which
contains at least 16% by weight water.
16. A material according to claim 1 containing as a
preservative acrylic acid, methacrylic acid, a 1 to 8 carbon atom
alkyl ester of acrylic acid, a 1 to 8 carbon atom alkyl ester of
methacrylic acid, an ethylene glycol ester of acrylic acid or
methacrylic acid, a 1,2-propylene glycol ester of acrylic acid or
methacrylic acid, a salt of acrylic acid with an alkali metal, an
alkaline earth metal or an organic base or a salt of methacrylic
acid with an alkali metal, an alkaline earth metal or an organic
base.
17. A material according to claim 1, wherein the pre-
servative is acrylic acid or methacrylic acid.
18. A material according to claim 1, wherein the pre-
servative is acrylic acid.
19. A material according to claim 1, wherein the pre-
servative is an ester of acrylic acid or methacrylic acid.
20. A material according to claim 19, wherein the
ester is an alkyl ester containing 1 to 4 carbon atoms in the
alkyl group.
21. A material according to claim 20, wherein the
alkyl group is ethyl.
22. A material according to claim 20, wherein the
ester is ethyl acrylate.
23. A material according to claim 19, wherein the
ester is an ester of ethylene glycol.
24. A material according to claim 23, wherein the
ester is ethylene glycol diacrylate or ethylene glycol dimetha-
crylate.
25. A material according to claim 19, wherein the
ester is an ester of 1,2-propylene glycol.
26. A material according to claim 25, wherein the
ester is propylene glycol diacrylate or propylene glycol dimetha-
crylate.

27. A material according to claim 19, wherein the
ester is an ester of glycerine.
28. A material according to claim 27, wherein the
ester is glycerine triacrylate or glycerine trimethacrylate.
29. A material according to claim 1, wherein the
preservative is a salt of acrylic acid or methacrylic acid.
30. A material according to claim 29, wherein the
salt is a sodium or potassium salt.
31. A material according to claim 29, wherein the
salt is a calcium salt.
32. A material according to claim 29, wherein the
salt is a hexamethylene tetramine salt.
33. A material according to claim 1, wherein the
preservative is acrylic acid or an ester or salt of acrylic
acid.
34. A material according to claim 1, wherein there
is present a polymer of (1) said acrylic acid, (2) said meth-
acrylic acid, (3) said salt or (4) said ester.
35. A material according to claim 12 or 13, wherein
the preservative is acrylic acid, ethyl acrylate, calcium
acrylate or propylene glycol diacrylate.
36. A silage containing alfalfa as a constituent
thereof and also containing acrylic acid, methacrylic acid or
an ester or salt of acrylic acid or methacrylic acid in an
amount effective to preserve said alfalfa containing silage.

Description

The present inven-tion relates to preservatives for
.- .-. silage in order to protect said silac3e agains-t the undesired
. ~i
. action of microorganisms such as bacteri.a, yeasts, and mold
. funyi.
~ llor the preservation of silage the removal of some of
. the microorganisms is effected. The growtll of only those micro-
. organisms which cause undesired processes such as the formation
of butyric acid is to be suppressed but not that of microorganisms
which cause the fermentation required in silage in order to form
.: 10 lac.tic acid.
It is known to add chemicals~ having a bactericida~ or
. fungicidal effect to silage for preservation. For example,
formaldehy~e and hexametllyl~ne tetramine serve as such a ~reserva-
tive. Organic acids such as formic acid, propionie acid, lac-tic
:j aeid, sorbic acid, benzoic acid, salicyli~ aeid, tartaric aeid,
` citric acid and sulphosalieylic acid are also used, if required
in the form of their esters or salts. Some of the known preserva-
tives act only on speeific types of the undesired mieroorganisms
or they have only a sligilt effect.
0 It has now been discovered tha-t acrylic acid and metha-
... .
J' crylic acid and -the es-ters and salts of these acids are extremely
.~ w~11 suited as preservatives for silage. Surprisingly enough ~.
. these mono-unsaturated acids and their derivatives have an in- ~;
, tense bacterieidal and fungicidal effect. Although these aeids ~,
~; do not differ fundamentally from the aeids used as preservatives ~.
heretofore, either in their acidity or in their structure, their ~. :
effect is incomparably greater.
. Aceording to the invention, at least one member
~. selected from acrylie acid and methacrylic aeid or esters or
.; -~ salts of these acids or mixtures thereof are used as preservatives.
Esters in which the alcohol component is ethylene glycol, 1,2-
propylene glycol, c~lycerine or a monohydric aliphatic alkanol
'` ~31
,~.: . - ,,.......................... , ~:.
.: . , ........... -~
:,

5~ 93
:,
~itll an unbrancllecl or branched chain con-taining 1 to 8 carbon
., . . ~ ~
-~ atoms, preferably 1 to 4 carbon atoms, par-ticularly ethanol, are
- preferably used as esters. In the salts the basic component is
::
either an organic base, preferably a nitrogen base as, for
example, hexamethylene-tetramine, or a metal, preferably an
alkali or alkaline earth metal, particularly sodium, potassium or
calcium. If required, the acids, esters or salts can be in the
form of polymers llp to approximately 50~.
- l'he preservatives according to the invention are suit-
;~ 10 able for use Wit}l any conventional silage as for example, silage
' from corn and turnips.
-- The substances according to the invention for use as
preservatives can usually be added in any form. For example,
they can be mixed wi-th the silage as solids or they can be sprayed
-~ on as li~iuids. In many cases it can be preferable to add the
substances in the form of solutions. Water can usually be used
as the solvent for the acids and salts. Alkanols such as 1,2-
propylene glycol or glycerine or esters such as 1,2-propylene-
glycol dipropionate or glycerine triacetate, and if required even f
mix-tures of these substances, are suitably used as solvents for
~ the esters. Ilowever, it can also be expedient to add to the sub- ,-
.,~'' i'
stances, ~hether in the solid or liquid phase, inert solids, as ~'
~or example, silica, kiesel guhr, bolus alba or polymers of acrylic
.,~. . .. .
;i acid and methacrylic acid or their esters or salts. If required,
.,.~ ~.
these substances may be added for the purpose of conver-ting a
'~ substance in the form of a li-luid into a fluid.
~ The amount in which the preservatives according to the
. ..,~
invention must be added in the individual case depends sub-
stantially on the kind of silage. In general, i-t is deslrable
to add the preservative -to the silage in such amounts that the
total content of preservative is approximately 0.01 -to 2.0% by
,
weight, preferably about 0.02 to 0~08% by weight.
. ~
- 2 -
,, E~
: . , ' :: . , . ~
.... . . . . . .
::, . , . . . : . : :

51 3~3
:
}le presen-t invention will be further illus-trated by
way of tne following examples~
xample 1
.
~ Samples of lucerne green meal were ensilaged in her-
. . .:
metically sealed glass vessels. A -total of 50 samples was
prepared i.e. in 5 groups of 10 identical samples:
.,, ~
group 1 without any addition
~; group 2 with the addition of 0.4~ by weight of
propionic acid
group 3 with the addition of 0.08% by weight of
acrylic acid
group 4 with the addition of 0.1% by weight of ethyl
acrylate
group 5 with the addition of 0.1~ by weight of calcium
acrylate.
The ~uality of the samples was determined according to
FLI~G (Broc]chaus ~BC der Landwirtschaf-t, vEs Brockhaus-Verlag,
Leipzing 2nd edition (1962), vol. 1 page 442 to 443): ~
Number of Samp:Les ~ -
~uality according to FLILG
Group Poor Fair Satisfactory Good Very Good _ ~-
2 1 2
,; 3 0 1 1 5 3 ~
~ 1 2 3 2 1 a
"
Example 2
o The procedure of Example 1 was followed but 0.1% by
wei~ht of acrylic acid was used in group 3 and 0.1% by weight of
``- propylene-cJlycol diacrylate in grou? 4. The results were as
follows: ;
.,,.~ ..
... .
,

~L~SI!~3
lumber of Samples p
.Quality accordin~ to FLIEG~
~: . Grou~ Poor Fair Satisfactory Good Very Good ~
____ _ _____ _ _ _ ... . ..
.. , 1 ~ 1 1 O O -', ~ .:
"' 2 1 2 4 2 1
1 2 2 5 2
1, 0
~, ' -
. ,:,
.,,. ~.'
.. ~ ,:
,.,. . ~;
., ; .
r
i 20
.;. ,^ . . . .
...... ,. .
.. ,.~., !~
.i., ~:
~, , '`,;:
. ~ . ` -
.,.-, - ~.'- .
; i ~' -
:,,.'. ~-'~ '
,,.. ~, .
C '
.' ~ I ,. -
i'.' ~' - -:
" `,, ~_ :
''' ` ::
.~,,, ~ .
.''. ' .
,;` ,~
',: ,' '.
- 4 -
,, . ~, ,~,...
. . : .