How mosquito repellent is an Indoor air pollutant

Mridani Tripathy, Madan Mohan Malviya University of Technology

Mridani a first-year B.Pharma student posted her entry in the Chemisch'graphy contest of her college on the Instagram social network platform

https://www.instagram.com/p/CZT-ezvvptb/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

She wrote that The mosquito repellent consists of a liquid mixture that gets converted into vapor on moderate heating

The liquid inside the refill is the mixture of three types of chemicals they are,

1- Insecticide like transfluthrin, which makes the mosquito fly away

2- Stabiliser/Anti-oxidant which include Butylated hydroxytoluene(BHT), it prevents the Insecticides from getting oxidized due to heat

3- A perfume to make odor comfortable for humans

These mixtures apart from being useful, were toxic also for humans as they can cause a variety of reactions like dizziness, headache, skin allergies, and other physical reactions.

As a solution, she also said that we can use herbal liquids of emulsions of aromatic oils from medicinal and aromatic plants like lemongrass, citronella, and others which can be used as an alternative option for mosquitoes repellent.