NASA helps develop environment-friendly mosquito killing machine

Sitting in the yard drinking coffee or maybe beer while watching the sun slowly going down can be very relaxing, but not when there are mosquitoes to spoil the fun.

Actually, it can be downright dangerous considering that it takes only one mosquito bite to inject the dengue virus into the human bloodstream.

There are, of course, a number of ways by which we can deal with mosquitoes. More often than not, however, these methods are either inadequate or in themselves dangerous. This is exactly why one inventor, who was worried about his newborn daughter ingesting a repellent or getting it in her eyes started tinkering around trying to find a safer, more environment-friendly way to protect his daughter from mosquito bites.

His efforts, with some help from the National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA), resulted in a space-age device that could kill mosquitoes within an acre of land without having to spread any chemical that is likely to harm the environment or other living things.

It was in 1995 when Alvin Wilbanks began his quest for a device that could offer a protection against mosquitoes without the use of chemicals.

The first thing he did was to find out what attracted the mosquitoes to human beings or other animals.

His immediate thought was that mosquitoes were vampire-like and would surely be attracted by blood. To his surprise, the mosquitoes were not biting to the blood bait that he placed on a slide.

And so he turned his attention to other things that he hoped would provide an irresistible invitation for those blood-sucking fliers to come in and offer themselves for capture and eventual elimination. These included moisture, body scent, motion and breathing. But they offered little or no improvement over known methods of killing or driving away those pesky mosquitoes.

Wilbanks then tried a bug light that is commonly found on the shelves of most stores selling household items. The bug light wasn’t working either. Then he tried replacing the bug light with a heating element and this provided the big break that he had long been waiting for. Wilbanks found out that most types of mosquitoes were attracted to the heat emitted by the element. There was one problem, though. The mosquitoes were not being captured and after a while the mosquitoes would simply fly away.

Further tests over the next three years showed that aside from temperature, there are some other factors that need to be taken into consideration to make the mosquito killing machine more effective. These are size, motion and even the elevation of the device.

With the problem becoming more and more complex, Wilbanks decided to seek the help of NASA which willing provided technical assistance through its Marshall Facility. The result of this partnership was a device of mosquito killing system that employs heat and carbon dioxide to mimic body temperatures and breathing patterns of humans, livestock, poultry and domestic pets.

The device works by emitting a heat that mimics the body temperature coupled with the automatic release of carbon dioxide, much like the way warm-blooded mammals breathe. When the mosquitoes come close enough they are sucked by a vacuum source and cast into an electronic grid that electrocutes them. The dead mosquitoes are then allowed to drop into a net where they are deposited until the following morning when it’s time to throw them into the soil where they can go back to being dust again.

A NASA publication described the device as environment-friendly and likens it to having an additional tree in the yard since it stores carbon dioxide and releases it back into the atmosphere. One unit can cover an area of about one acre and costs $6 to $8 (P280-P290) to maintain, a small compared to the benefit that it offers – which is having peace of mind on the assurance that no dengue-carrying mosquito will come within biting distance of your loved ones.

This mosquito killing machine is now available in the country by Tigerworks Distributor Corp. which has obtained the master distributorship for all of Asia and other Pacific Rim countries. Tigerworks, with Timmy Tan as chairman, recently appointed XTI Ventures Sdn Bhd as sole distributor for Malaysia.

Elsewhere in the world, Wilbanks said his Mosquito Killing System has reached Africa and Europe, particularly Greece and Russia.

For inquiry call Tigerworks office 6414505.