Bye, Ticks: An Eco-Friendly Approach to Repellency

Overview

Due to climate change, the tick population in Canada is rising rapidly, increasing the risk of tick-borne illnesses such as Lyme disease. The goal of this project was to find an environmentally and skin friendly tick repellent as an alternative to common DEET, which could be harmful to aquatic ecosystems. This project tested six essential oils as natural, biodegradable alternative tick repellents. A special arena was constructed for tick repellency testing. Where DEET at 25% v/v surprisingly repelled 0% of ticks after ten minutes, one of the oils - May Cheng at 25% v/v concentration - repelled 66.7% of ticks after 10 minutes. May Cheng also didn't show any reaction on skin at this concentration after being tested on 53 volunteers. These findings suggest that May Cheng essential oil can provide fair tick repellency while remaining safer for human use and environment, offering a promising biodegradable alternative to chemical repellents.

Awards (2)

• Bronze Medal
• Selected for CWSF 2026

Competition history

• CWSF 2026 Environment & Climate Change

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