Novel Coatings for Infusion of Fabrics with Cutting-Edge Biobased Insect Repellents

Project Summary In recent years there has been major concerns rising for transmitting vector-borne diseases by hematophagous arthropods. Indeed NN-Diethyl-meta-toluamide (DEET) and Permethrin repellents are the most well-known synthetic insect repellents in the market their use has led to concerns of damaging ecosystems and being unsafe for humans. Natural products including medium chain fatty acids have recently been recommended by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Research Service (ARS) as novel inexpensive and highly efficacious repellant compounds. The InsectaPel team aims to develop biobased insect repellent coatings for different textile applications as an alternative to petroleum-based permethrin and DEET. With support from USDA Phase I SBIR the InsectaPel team has successfully incorporated the mCFAs into latex carriers and validated the insect repellency of impregnated textiles. Producing stable mCFA emulsions has been one of the primary challenges for the textile coating application due to lack of solubility in water. In USDA Phase I studies the InsectaPel team was able to stabilize these compounds through emulsification followed by effective reactivity on textile substrates. We concluded that our biobased insect repellent samples demonstrated 100% repellency against stable flies' similar to permethrin treated fabrics. More importantly our coating component could maintain mCFAs on textiles even after exposure to the environment for 21 days without any reduction in the insect repellency. Our biobased insect repellent process opens a new window for producing a safer more cost- effective easier to apply and sustainable product in comparison to permethrin for textile coating applications. Objectives: The main objective of phase II is to develop and commercialize plant-based insect repellent textiles using mCFAs chemistries. The proposed project with utilize advanced application methods mCFA products derived from metathesized soy esters and commercial binders. The InsectaPel team will also evaluate and optimize the durability of mCFA-impregnated textiles against laundering. 1