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

For decades researchers have tried to develop efficient repellents to prevent blood-sucking insectsfrom biting humans and transferring vector-borne infectious diseases. Over 700000 human livescould be saved annually by preventing such vector bites. The application of insect repellentsdirectly on the skin or in the form of impregnated textile has long been the primary traditionaldefense against this threat. As of now synthetic repellents such as DEET or Permethrin arepreferred over common natural repellents due to the formers' effectiveness and durability despitetheir numerous health carcinogenic and environmental warnings.Recently scientists from the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) discovered that biobasedmedium-chain fatty acids derived from coconut oil have shown excellent repellent activity against abroad array of blood-sucking arthropods including biting flies ticks bed bugs and mosquitoes.These fatty acids were found to be even better repellents than DEET and Permethrin.With this project InsectaPel working with ARS aims to develop formulations and applicationmethodologies to incorporate new biobased repellents into textile products. The approach is basedon textile coating technology well established by the InsectaPel team. It is expected that theproposed research will result in the development of new safer insect-repelling textile coatingscompetitive to existing products. A significant fraction of synthetic repellents currently used intextiles can be potentially replaced with agriculturally derived alternatives. The proposed researchwill benefit US agriculture by driving additional demand for coconut triglycerides and creatingvaluable end products.