Abstract

N-N Diethyl Benz amide Mosquito repellent finish was applied on cotton fabrics using by simple padding method. The Mosquito repellent N-N Diethyl Benz amide treated cotton fabrics were evaluated by Cage Test. The 12% N-N Diethyl Benz amide applied fabric gave 100 % mosquito repellency.

Introduction

In Today's era of modernization of the textile industry, we are going through advancements of technology in every field of this industry. The world where this would lead us would be astonishingly hi-tech and materialistic. To ensure our security and safety from the future hazards, we need to equally development the technology for our protection. Protective textiles are among one such smart application of smart technology in textiles. Protective textiles refer to those textile products which have a functionality of giving protection from something in some or the other sense. With regard to textiles, the protective textile field of the smart textiles has to fulfill this requirement. A Mosquito repellent textile is one such textile product. Mosquitoes classify as one of the deadliest pests known to man. In the tropical countries mosquito menace is one of the greatest problems faced by the people in their every day lives. Mosquitoes cause more human suffering than any other organism. Worldwide, however, mosquitoes transmit disease to more than 700, 000, 000 people annually and will be responsible for the deaths of 1 of every 17 people currently alive. Mosquitoes are attracted to carbon dioxide as well as the warmth and humidity people give off-so subtle differences in body chemistry between people make some people more prone to getting bitten by mosquitoes than others.. Mosquitoes have complex methods of detecting hosts and different types of mosquitoes react to different stimuli. Most mosquitoes are active at dawn and dusk, but there are also mosquitoes that seek hosts during the day. You can avoid being bitten by making sure you aren't attracting mosquitoes, using attractants to lure mosquitoes elsewhere, using a repellent, and avoiding actions that diminish the effectiveness of the repellent.

Mosquito repellent textiles is one of the revolutionary ways to advance the textile field by providing the much-needed features of driving away mosquitoes, especially in the tropical areas. It protects the human beings from the bite of mosquitoes and thereby promising safety from the mosquito-borne diseases, such as malaria, dengue fever (DF), Nile fever,dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF), chicken gunia and filariasis, are serious public health problems in tropical regions, especially in Africa and Asia. These diseases are transmitted to human beings through mosquito bite only. Since there is no effective vaccine available for the control of these diseases, prevention of mosquito bites is one of the main strategies to control or minimize incidence of these diseases.

There are several mosquito repellents are available in today's market, for instance, an estimated 110 million people safely use DEET worldwide each year. Developed by the US Department of Agriculture, Di-Ethyl Meta Toluamide (DEET) was first used by the military. It is applied as a skin lotion and its effectiveness last for four to five hours. DEET cannot be applied on fabrics, as it does not withstand even mild laundering.
People initially applied mosquito repellents on their skin directly as lotion. It is effective for a few hours and most of them can be harmful to human beings as they are coming in direct contact with the skin. To impart this character a finish of the mosquito repelling agent is given to the textile material. Due to these reasons, people now prefer mosquito repellent textiles, as they may remain effective for up to a week when applied to clothing. A repellent applied to clothing normally retains its effect longer than on skin .Generally, cotton and nylon fabrics are treated with mosquito repellents since cotton is widely used as bed-sheets where nylon as mosquito nets.

In this research, subjective evaluation of mosquito repellent finish applied cotton fabrics are analyzed .The result of the repellent activity are based on the cage test for evaluating the effectiveness of mosquito repellent finish.