Fumigant activity of eleven essential oil compounds and their selected binary mixtures against Culex pipiens pallens (Diptera: Culicidae).

To seek natural products for the development of environment friendly mosquito control agents, fumigant activity of eleven essential oil compounds and the joint action of the active compounds were evaluated against Culex pipiens pallens adults. Fumigant bioassay demonstrated that carvacrol exhibited the highest fumigant activity followed by thymol and l-perillaldehyde, with LC50 values of 0.26, 0.28, and 0.34 mg/L air, respectively. Among the binary mixtures of four compounds with preferable performance, only the binary mixture of carvacrol and thymol (1:1, w/w) displayed a synergistic effect with the co-toxicity coefficient (CTC) value of 174.1 and LC50 value of 0.16 mg/L air. Furthermore, the actual efficacy of the binary mixture at 300 mg/mat (KT50 = 7.9, 15.8, and 22.0 min after 0, 2, and 4 h of preliminary heating, respectively) was comparable with that of d-allethrin at 30 mg/mat (KT50 = 8.7, 17.9, and 21.2 min after 0, 2, and 4 h of preliminary heating, respectively) tested in vaporizing mats by the glass chamber method (70 × 70 × 70 cm). These results revealed that carvacrol, thymol, and their binary mixture have potential for the development of natural fumigants for adult mosquito control.