Developing Eco-Friendly Synthetic Routes Using Green Chemistry Principles: A Case Study on Citrus-Based Mosquito Repellents

Human health and the environment's woes have always been connected with the strain traditional synthetic processes indisputably inflict on agriculture, personal hygiene, and pharmaceutical industries. Those older techniques are problematic because of dependence on fossil fuels, toxic expenditures, energy in non-biodegradable solvents, waste, air and water pollution, ecological damage, and the deterioration of nature over time. In addition, many synthetic products are non-biodegradable, creating waste that poses a threat to humans and animals. These issues as discussed indicate an urgent need in the form of safe alternatives methods. According to Paul Anastas and John Warner, green chemistry tackles this problem quite well due to its approaches that strengthen the situation with the principles of design that focus on minimizing waste, renewability, weaker products, and increasing renewable energy utilization. Along with this ideology, the present research tried to develop an eco-friendly mosquito repellent with waste from citrus peels as a renewable raw material. Essential oils were obtained by cold pressing and hydro distillation, while the formulation was set with biodegradable constituents like beeswax, vitamin E, and rosemary extract, thus avoiding harmful solvents. The oil of lemon proved to possess a 95% repellency effect against mosquitoes for approximately 3.8 hours which is close to the efficacy of 15 % DEET, along with having limonene and citral, while the product also demonstrated high biodegradability of 92% within 14 days. Furthermore, it showed no dermal toxicity and no impact on non-target organisms such as bees and honeysuckle butterflies. These results further reinforce the effectiveness and sustainability of repellents derived from citrus extracts while assessing the influence of Green Chemistry on public health problems.