Abstract

COMPARATIVE STUDY OF MENTHAPIPERITA, OCIMUM TENUIFLORUM, TAGETES LEAVES BASED HERBAL MOSQUITO REPELLENT

Sadaf Anis Don*

ABSTRACT

Mentha piperita (Peppermint), Ocimum tenuiflorum (Tulsi), Tagetes (Marigold) plant has been serving from years as a mosquito repellent in the field of ancient & modern medicine. Commercially available mosquito repellents are chemical based and disastrous to human health. An attempt has been made to prepare Peppermint, Tulsi and Marigold leaves cake. All leaves are cheap, effective &environment friendly. It is a work based on formulating and evaluating herbal mosquito repellent cakes using natural binders such as Neem powder, Potato starch, Corn starch, Coconut shell powder, Wood powder and Cow dung. The cakes were also sprayed with different concentration of Peppermint, Tulsi and Marigold oil. The efficacy of prepared cakes were evaluated on 3 different parameters such as flammability, burning time and mosquito repellent activity. Based on the result obtained from theses parameter, Peppermint, Tulsi and Marigold leaves cakes with Neem powder as binder having less burning time and irritation and show effective mosquito repellent activity as well as eco-friendly.

Keywords: Flammability, Mosquito repellent, Natural binders, Residual percentage.