Comparing Cotton, Linen, and Tencel Biodegradable Fabric Materials With Lemon Extract as a Repelling Band for Culex pipiens

School Name

Spring Valley High School

Grade Level

11th Grade

Presentation Topic

Zoology

Presentation Type

Non-Mentored

Abstract

Mosquito populations are increasing, allowing malaria and other diseases to affect more people around the world. It has been found that repellent-based clothing could be a more effective and comfortable alternative to topical repellents with one of the more recent inventions being plastic mosquito-repellent bracelets. The question that this research focused on was whichwhat biodegradable material wouldwill be more effective in creating a repellent based band, having similar or even better effects than the plastic repelling-bracelets. This experiment is an extension from previous research that found lemon extract to be the most effective repellent, therefore using it with the materials cotton, linen, and tencel to create the repellent-bands. It was hypothesized that the cotton-band would be most effective in repelling mosquitoes since it is ait a very durable material and is known to absorb liquids. For experimentation, 15 mosquitoes were used for each trial to find each relative rate of repellency. There werewas a total of 20 trials; 5 for each independent variable as well as the controllled group with original plastic band. The tencel-band was concluded to have the highest rate of repellency at 96% and linen band had the lowest at 81%. An ANOVA test was performed to compare the controlled band with the three biodegradable bands; F(3,16)= 3.96, p<0.027 (lower than the alpha-value 0.05). A post-hoc Tukey test was also conducted to find significant differences between only the tencel and linen-bands. In conclusion, the tencel-band was the most effective, biodegradable repellent-bracelet.

Location

Furman Hall 119

Start Date

3-28-2020 10:00 AM

Presentation Format

Oral and Written

Group Project

No

COinS
 
Mar 28th, 10:00 AM

Comparing Cotton, Linen, and Tencel Biodegradable Fabric Materials With Lemon Extract as a Repelling Band for Culex pipiens

Furman Hall 119

Mosquito populations are increasing, allowing malaria and other diseases to affect more people around the world. It has been found that repellent-based clothing could be a more effective and comfortable alternative to topical repellents with one of the more recent inventions being plastic mosquito-repellent bracelets. The question that this research focused on was whichwhat biodegradable material wouldwill be more effective in creating a repellent based band, having similar or even better effects than the plastic repelling-bracelets. This experiment is an extension from previous research that found lemon extract to be the most effective repellent, therefore using it with the materials cotton, linen, and tencel to create the repellent-bands. It was hypothesized that the cotton-band would be most effective in repelling mosquitoes since it is ait a very durable material and is known to absorb liquids. For experimentation, 15 mosquitoes were used for each trial to find each relative rate of repellency. There werewas a total of 20 trials; 5 for each independent variable as well as the controllled group with original plastic band. The tencel-band was concluded to have the highest rate of repellency at 96% and linen band had the lowest at 81%. An ANOVA test was performed to compare the controlled band with the three biodegradable bands; F(3,16)= 3.96, p<0.027 (lower than the alpha-value 0.05). A post-hoc Tukey test was also conducted to find significant differences between only the tencel and linen-bands. In conclusion, the tencel-band was the most effective, biodegradable repellent-bracelet.