Keywords: 
• pesticide /
• adjuvant /
• aquatic organism /
• toxic effect /
• environmental safety

Abstract: Pesticide adjuvant is a general term for the auxiliary substances except for pesticide active components added during the processing and use of pesticide formulations. Adjuvants can enhance the pesticides performance in the aspect of improving the formulation efficacy, capability and stabilization, and reducing the hazards of active components. Almost all the chemical pesticide technicals are required to process with adjuvants to produce the formulations with actual use value. The adjuvants themselves normally do not have killing effect on the target organisms but that does not mean it is safe for the ecological environment or human health. Some pesticide adjuvants, which are still in use, are proved to have carcinogenicity, teratogenesis and mutagenicity effects, nerval toxicity, and endocrine disruption effects on organisms. So far the risk of adjuvants to the ecological environment caused by pesticide applications is seldom considered by researchers and there is a blank zone existed in the aspect of pesticide adjuvant management in China, which need to cause the administration's attention and develop relevant prevention and control regulations. There are many kinds of pesticide adjuvants, which are usually divided into two types: non surface active agent and surface active agent. In this paper, we summarize the recent development of the acute and chronic toxic effects of common solvents, non-ionic, cationic and anionic surface active agents on the aquatic organisms, including alga, daphnia and fishes. We also summarize the recent development of the endocrine disruption effects of alkyl phenol polyoxyethylene ether and their degradation products on aquatic organisms. In view of the possible risk of pesticide adjuvants to the ecological environment and human health, several suggestions are proposed on the environmental safety management of pesticide adjuvants in China.