Evaluation of mosquito repellency activity using mosquito cage method

Abstract

Essential oils are the well-known ingredients for their repellency activity. But the essential oils have the volatile constituents which vaporize due to course of time. The approach for encapsulation of essential oils in the micro-range provides the controlled release for the oils and gave the activity for longer duration of time. In the present study, Lavender and ylang-ylang oil encapsulated by the polymer ethyl-cellulose in the micron range and further incorporated in the carbopol gel. The FTIR data of lavender and ylang-ylang oils showed the peak at 1735.5 cm-1 and 1749 cm-1 respectively for the presence of C=O group. The prepared gel evaluated for its mosquito repellency activity, the gel showed the repellency of about 85% and was safe for the application. The MTT assay on the cell line indicates the IC50 value was 724.9±0.162 µg/ml. GC-MS confirms the linalool as its main constituent.