The objective of the pest control report is to explore research, development, and innovations in the area of natural, organic insect repellent. The report may revolve around various aspects of the technology that will involve details of technologies emphasizing various innovations regarding the composition, methods, and type of insect that natural pest control agents kill.
Innovative trends or alternatives of the past technologies used in herbal insecticides have been discussed. Transformative Players and top products in the market advancing with technologies in pest control have been studied comprehensively. The pest control report will shed light on the following:
- Recent technology & innovation trends
- Market forces impacting herbal/Natural insect repellants
- Innovative Applications in area of insect repellants
- Competitive Perspective
- Future Direction
Insect Repellent Methods
In this section of the pest control report, the challenges and difficulties associated with traditional methods have been discussed to better understand the possible solutions that are cost-efficient.
It is evident that a huge population of the world dies due to the diseases caused by insects. 2.5 billion people live in malaria-endemic zones. 50% of the world’s population is at risk of malaria. Some of the protective methods are as follows:
Chemicals agents
- Natural agents
- Insect Protective garments /textiles
- Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS)
- Insecticide treated (untreated) mosquito nets (ITNs)
Synthetic Repellents
- Toxicity of repellents
- DEET – commercially used
- Render rashes, eye irritation, swelling
- Developing resistance
Natural Agents
- Extracts from roots, stem, leaves, fruits, flowers, and seeds – Lantana, lemongrass & tulsi
- Oils of Castor, Cedar, Clove, Fennel, Citronella, Eucalyptus, Neem, Rosemary
Challenges
To understand the industry challenges relating to pest control, we went through thousands of scientific literature/ academic publications and patent literature based upon which our team found the following major industrial problem in the packaging arena.
Frequent use of insecticidal drugs leads to drug resistance. Also, sometimes chemical pesticides may lead to toxic and carcinogenic residues in food and underground water system which harm health. Most of the insecticidal fragrances used in textiles withstand only 2-3 wash cycles only and a few insecticidal components have high volatility at room temperature.
Innovative Solutions
In this section of the pest control report innovative solutions that are natural and pose no threat to plants. Botanical oils can be used to overcome the challenges as essential plant oils like rosemary, peppermint oil, etc. can be used as natural pest repellants. Another solution could be the downregulation of genes via RNAi in the target insects/ pests. The other methodology can be the microencapsulation of insect repellents. It enables the capsules to stay long on fabric even after wash and controlled and prolonged release.
Innovation Panorama
The experts of Signicent found the effect of microencapsulated natural essential oils for mothproofing and moth repellent activity along with the release of fragrance. Three essential oils; citronella, lavender, and eucalyptus were used for checking the moth repellent activity.
Methodology: Fabric was scoured prior to any treatment using Imerol PCJ liquid at 60°C for 30 min. After that, the formulation was prepared using Imerol PCJ liquid 0.5gpl (wetting agent) and microencapsulated citronella, lavender, and eucalyptus 20 gpl, having material to liquid ration of 1:20 at pH 4.5. Loading of essential oil ranges from 24-41% on the basis of capsule slurry. The wool fabric was soaked in formulation for 15 min and samples were dried at 100⁰ C followed by curing at 130⁰ C for 2 min. The wool-treated fabrics were then washed and dry-cleaned and analyzed for essential oil contents using GC-MS and moth-proof testing.
Advantages: Citronella microcapsule treated samples were found to give moth resistance property. Finished fabric samples give a pleasant fragrance. The fragrance release rate was found to be slower thus making the fragrance release durable.
Fragrance Intensity
The release of fragrance was studied over a prolonged period and it was found that the release is stable and prolonged due to microencapsulation. Over a period of 15 days around 17-24% of essential oil comes out indicating the prolonged release. All the samples after three washing have shown a very faint fragrance. The samples with three dry-cleaning were found to give the moderate intensity of the fragrance.
Among all the fabrics citronella microcapsule treated sample has shown some kind of resistance and the surface damage was also less compared to the other samples.
Each year Signicent provides consultancy to hundreds of organizations to help transform their innovations to value.
Plant-Based Essential Oils as Repellent
In this section of the pest control report, plant-based essential oils as an alternative to chemical repellents such as DEET have been discussed.
- Various essential oils were tested for mosquito repellent activity against laboratory-reared female Ae. aegypti by human bait technique. The essential oil of M. spicata, E. canadensis, P. hysterophorus, C. sumatrensis, T. minuta, C. ambrosioides, and E. camaldulensis exhibited 100%, 80%, 63.9%, 51.4%, 50.2%, 39.7%, and 13.7% mosquito repellent activity respectively.
- The most abundant constituents of M. spicata, E. canadensis, P. hysterophorus, C. sumatrensis and T. minuta essential oils were piperitenone oxide (47.1%), limonene (41.3%), germacrene D (36.6%), cis-lachnophyllum ester (33.3%), and dihydrotagetone (20.9%) respectively.
- M. spicata essential oil completely inhibited the attractiveness of human hands toward female mosquitoes for more than 45 min thus, showed bioactivity comparable to that of commercially used mosquito repellent, DEET. vPiperitenone oxide was the major compound in M. spicata essential oil.
Market Analysis And Segmentation
In this section of the pest control report, the market segmentation and market trends have been discussed. The global household insecticides market was valued at USD 12 billion in 2018 and is forecasted to register a CAGR of 8.2% during the forecast period(2020-2026). The rise in government initiatives promoting the use of household insecticides. Advancements in insecticide release technology. The harmful effects of chemicals used in the repellants act as restraints.
Growing demand for plant-based repellents and increasing penetration in untapped markets of rural regions. However, the approvals and large-scale competitions among global and local brands are providing opportunities.
North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle-East & Africa, and South America have been discussed. Asia-Pacific is expected to account for the largest market share over the coming years for the household insecticide repellent market due to the forest region. The US is the largest producer and consumer of household insecticides.
Botanical Moth Deterrent
Earthkind® is North Carolina, USA-based company founded in 1995 that provides smarter solutions that are plant-based to prevent damage caused by pests. Their pest products repel rather than kill off the pests. EarthKind® reduces its ecological footprint by minimizing its waste stream in the manufacturing process.
Stay Away® Moths is a botanic moth deterrent that is made with a mix of essential oils and other plant-based ingredients. The moth prevention product contains cedarwood oil, geranium oil, geraniol oil, corn cobs, almond oil, and sunflower oil. The pouches provide an alternative to harmful chemicals and provide a no-kill solution to help preserve our delicate ecosystem.
Help protect clothes and food items by preventing a problem before it starts with fast-action with continuous protection for 30 days. Pest control alternative to mothballs, harmful chemicals, and pesticides. Made in the USA with farm-grown ingredients including cedar wood oil and geranium oil.
Personal Insect Repellent Products
Mosquito Repellent Wristband & Clips: The patented DiffuControl-System™ technology. It uses vanillin that regulates the volatility of the essential oils impregnated in the PARA’KITO® pellets. It offers continuous diffusion for 24 hours a day. It is effectively masking our presence in mosquitoes, by interfering with their olfactory radar.
Water-Resistant Spray – Mosquito & Tick Repellent: The HydrActiv-Complex™ Formulation Technology uses coconut oil extracts as moisturizing lipophilic compounds in affinity with the epidermis. It provides effective protection for 6h against tiger mosquitoes and 6h against ticks.
Mosquito & Tick Repellent Spray: The patented ClayCell-Complex™ Formulation Technology. It Uses a mineral (clay) and a vegetal extract (cellulose) as binders, with no alcohol or synthetic surfactants, reducing the repellent actives penetration into the epidermis, enhancing their efficacy. Long-lasting protection of 8 hours against tiger mosquitoes and 5 hours against ticks.
Startups
In this section of the pest control report, the start-ups that are aggressively working in the field of natural plant pest control have been discussed.
Sensorygen, is a US-based startup founded in 2015. Sensorygen has identified an effective, natural broad-spectrum insect repellent as the replacement for harmful chemicals on the basis of toxicity, cost, and commercial availability. Sensorygen has built an impressive and patented compound library around natural insect repellency and insecticide, nutraceutical, and human taste and scent coupled with an AI-driven, computational neurobiology technology platform that continues to produce deeply interesting results.
Biopero is a Danish startup established in the year 2016. They use pheromones of particular insect species to confuse male insects which makes it hard for them to find females and disrupt the mating of insects. The development of resistance with such kinds of products is considerably lower when compared to other solutions. Uses yeast-based fermentation process to produce concentrated and stabilized pheromones at a large-scale and inexpensively and majorly targets cotton ball worms, diamondback moth, rice stem borers, and fall armyworms.
Future Trends & Directions
Cellular IoT and Futura Futura are working on a surveillance solution that leverages LPWAN/NB-IoT for insect detection. This device sends an image of the bait area back to the servers several times a day. Using image recognition, Futura’s system looks for and tracks if any parasites were caught and are present in the image.
Thermal Imaging Technology: Thermal imaging can be an extremely effective way to locate and identify pest-related problems. This technology makes use of thermal detection instruments capable of picking up the sources of heat and detecting the source of pests, even if they are hidden behind walls or other similar surfaces.
Pest Destruct Ultrasonic Insect Repeller: Future technologies are directed toward the development of electronic repellers or electronic traps, that will release some waves to kill or repel the flying insects. Such devices use in sonic and ultrasonic microchip technology to send out ultrasonic waves which will repel insects and are not harmful, environment friendly, and non-toxic to humans.