Authors: Kai-Chiu Ho, Song-Ying Mo, Bei-Bei Tang, Tai-Yu Wong, Manni Mo
N,N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide (DEET) and Permethrin are the most common active ingredients in mosquito repellents. They are commonly sprayed on textiles and clothing to repel insects, specifically, mosquitos, in order to avoid the vector-borne diseases spreading through communities. In this article, we first discuss the characteristic of DEET and Permethrin based on their composition and chemical structure. We then conducted experiments to evaluate the functionality of each ingredient. We also compared the anti-mosquito efficacy of the textiles and clothing sprayed with DEET and Permethrin; the government restriction of the application of these pesticides to textiles and clothing due to their toxicity level and impact on the human body, and any damages to textile and clothing materials.
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