INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF APPLIED RESEARCH ON TEXTILE URL: http://atctex.org/ijartex/current-issue.html Vol. 6, No. 1, pp 5-9, November 2018 5 MOSQUITO REPELLENCY OF POLYESTER NETS TREATED WITH CYCLODEXTRIN/REPELLENT COMPLEXES M.M. Miró Specos *1 , D. Y. Topollan 1 , J. Arata 2 , V. Zannoni 2 , J. Volmajer Valh 3 , J. Garcia 4 , A.C. Gutierrez 4 , B. Voncina 3 , L.G. Hermida 2 1 Instituto Nacional de Tecnologı´a Industrial (INTI), Centro de Textiles – Edificio 13, Avenida General Paz 5445 B1650WAB San Martı´n, Buenos Aires, Argentina 2 Instituto Nacional de Tecnologı´a Industrial (INTI), Centro de Quı´mica – Edificio 38, Avenida General Paz 5445 B1650WAB San Martı´n, Buenos Aires, Argentina 3 Institute of Engineering Materials and Design, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Maribor, Smetanova 17, 2000 Maribor, Slovenia. 4 Centro de Estudios Parasitológicos y de Vectores (CEPAVE), La Plata (BsAs), Argentina ABSTRACT Fabric treatments with β-Cyclodextrins (β-CD) have been studied for different applications as nanotechnologycal approaches to achieve functional textiles. In particular, repellents and insecticides have been incorporated in β-CD treated textiles to prolong their release. In this case, Citriodiol®, a naturally derived mosquito repellent, was incorporated to β-CD treated polyester (PET) nets. Two methods for citriodiol inclusion were studied; i) pipette dripping or ii) impregnation of fabric in a plastic bag, in order to increase the repellent activity of PET textile substrates. Release profiles were analyzed by gas chromatography and repellency was monitored by in vivo assays with Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Long lasting and reloadable mosquito repellent nets could be achieved by treating PET knits with citriodiol/β-CD complexes. KEYWORDS β-cyclodextrin; polyester; mosquito repellency; citriodiol. 1. INTRODUCTION Mosquitoes are insects of major public health concern because many species are vectors of diseases. Because of global warming the distribution of mosquitoes has expanded from tropical regions to southern latitudes, which has spread the sources of viral infection from mosquitoes. Aedes aegypti is the primary vector of dengue, the most important arboviral human infection worldwide. A dramatic increase in the number of dengue outbreaks has been reported in recent years (Dick et al., 2012). The urgent need for global actions to avoid further disease spread has led many researchers to focus on different strategies for the control of mosquito bites. Bed net impregnation with synthetic pyrethroid insecticides is a wide spread strategy for vector control. The challenge is to protect the user from mosquito bites using mosquito biorepellents. Citriodiol® is one of the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended repellents for use on skin and clothing. It has been tested and registered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and included in the European Biocidal Products Directive (BPD) 98/8/EC. It is a naturally derived mixture of substances and can be obtained from eucalyptus citriodiora oil as previously described (Drapeau et al., 2011). Cyclodextrins are cyclic oligosacharides which can form complexes with host molecules, acting as reservoir of functional agents. If a mosquito repellent forms a complex with β-Cyclodextrin molecules (β-CD), it could be gradually released, prolonging its effect and offering the possibility of reloading the β-CD once the repellent is released. Permanent fixation of β-CD on textile substrates could enable the reload of the * Corresponding author. Email: mmiro@inti.gob.ar Copyright 2018 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF APPLIED RESEARCH ON TEXTILE