Silica-Based Organic/Inorganic Hybrid Treatments as Anti-Mosquito Textile Finishing

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washing cycles. In short, the in situ formation of NH2-MIL-125 on the surface of cellulose-

based fabrics affords composite materials with excellent anti-mosquito properties that do

not require the presence of any insecticide.

Other authors investigated a straightforward synthesis of silver nanoparticles

using Moringa Oleifra water extract (El-Sayed et al. 2020). The obtained sil-

ver nanoparticles in the presence of Moringa were mixed with hydrolyzed 3-

Glycidyloxypropyltrimethoxysilane silane, as a sol-gel precursor, in combination with a

modified dimethylol dihydroxyethylene urea low formaldehyde reactant resin. The anti-

mosquito activity of the treated fabric was assessed on cotton, polyester/cotton blend, vis-

cose and linen textile samples. The test was carried out according to the reported proce-

dure. A cage, inside which the treated fabric was fixed in one side, was filled with 100 adult

mosquitos, 3 days old, checking for the time the mosquitos stayed away from the fabric.

As a reference, the same experiment was conducted using an untreated textile sample. Re-

sults show that mosquito mortality depends on the type of treated sample and duration of

exposure. The in-situ treatment of fabric surface by AgNPs@Moringa suspension offers

the formation of composite materials with excellent anti-mosquito properties that do not

require the presence of any harmful insecticide material.

14.4

CONCLUSIONS

The economic impact that mosquitos cause is really high, so much so that the develop-

ment of efficient repellents is of huge importance, especially if they are of natural origin

and harmless to human health. The use of different essential oils extracted from plants and

immobilized on tissues can prove to be one of the winning weapons in this battle due to

their recognized repellent properties as well as antimicrobial and antioxidant characteris-

tics. The high volatility and uncontrollable delivery of these oils can be solved through

the sol-gel technique, which can control their release. In this way, essential oils can be

encapsulated within sol-gel based coatings, providing composite materials with excellent

anti-mosquito properties that do not exhibit significant toxic characteristics for the envi-

ronment and human beings.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This chapter is partly based on work performed within the framework of IMAAC

(https://imaac.eu/) related to COST Action CA16227 (Investigation & Mathe-

matical Analysis of Avant-garde Disease Control via Mosquito Nano-Tech-Repellents,

https://cost.eu/actions/CA16227/), supported by COST Association (Euro-

pean Cooperation in Science and Technology).