Scorching night at the weekend, heavy weather… Summer has settled in well. With it, mosquitoes return to invade your homes. Indeed, for several months, tiger mosquitoes have been appearing throughout France. But how to get rid of it effectively and naturally?
On July 5, 2023, the Japanese company KAO announced in the journal Scientific Reports that it had found an effective solution against mosquitoes. Indeed, GEO reveals that researchers have developed a surfactant spray that avoids the use of insecticides. But how does this new remedy work? When will it be available to the general public?
The surfactant spray offered by KAO has the ability to “counteract the mosquito’s natural water resistance properties”, specifies the magazine. Indeed, the mosquito has a so-called hydrophobic structure allowing it not to get wet because of water. With this solution, the researchers therefore circumvented this property. To do this, they used surfactants. These are “compounds which allow a stable mixture between a fatty substance and water”, specifies our colleague from GEO.
To prevent these surfactants from being toxic to humans, researchers from the Japanese company tested several of them. This spray was then the subject of clinical trials on mosquitoes. The result is maddening. Indeed, mosquitoes sprayed with surfactants fell and could no longer fly. More so, this remedy prevents them from breathing. “In practice, we plan to spray these solutions using sprayers and sprinklers,” say the researchers. The objective is above all to find an alternative to traditional insecticides, which are usually toxic to humans.
Furthermore, no release date has been announced.
