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Mosquito bite prevention through graphene barrier layers

C. Castilho,Dong Li,Muchun Liu,Yue Liu,Huajian Gao,R. Hurt

Published 2019 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

ABSTRACT

Significance The mosquito is the world’s most important vector for transmission of infectious diseases, and chemical agents now used for bite prevention can have environmental or human health side effects. This work explores a nonchemical method for mosquito bite prevention based on graphene, the atomically thin sheet of carbon atoms, as a potential barrier material. We show that multilayer graphene films in the dry state completely inhibit biting by preventing mosquitos from sensing skin- or sweat-associated chemicals used to locate blood meals. In some cases, the graphene films also act as mechanical barriers to the penetration of the mosquito fascicle, its feeding apparatus. The results can guide development of graphene protective technologies on skin or within smart fabrics. Graphene-based materials are being developed for a variety of wearable technologies to provide advanced functions that include sensing; temperature regulation; chemical, mechanical, or radiative protection; or energy storage. We hypothesized that graphene films may also offer an additional unanticipated function: mosquito bite protection for light, fiber-based fabrics. Here, we investigate the fundamental interactions between graphene-based films and the globally important mosquito species, Aedes aegypti, through a combination of live mosquito experiments, needle penetration force measurements, and mathematical modeling of mechanical puncture phenomena. The results show that graphene or graphene oxide nanosheet films in the dry state are highly effective at suppressing mosquito biting behavior on live human skin. Surprisingly, behavioral assays indicate that the primary mechanism is not mechanical puncture resistance, but rather interference with host chemosensing. This interference is proposed to be a molecular barrier effect that prevents Aedes from detecting skin-associated molecular attractants trapped beneath the graphene films and thus prevents the initiation of biting behavior. The molecular barrier effect can be circumvented by placing water or human sweat as molecular attractants on the top (external) film surface. In this scenario, pristine graphene films continue to protect through puncture resistance—a mechanical barrier effect—while graphene oxide films absorb the water and convert to mechanically soft hydrogels that become nonprotective.

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