Silica-Microencapsulated Orange Oil for Sustainable Pest Control

An ultralow amount of sub-micron spherical SiO2 particles encapsulating 7 wt% crude orange oil (SiliOrange) suspended in water shows surprisingly high insecticidal activity against the cotton leafworm Spodoptera littoralis, and significantly reduces the progeny of cotton aphid Aphis gossypii under laboratory testing conditions. Considering the ease of reproducible preparation of the material and the biocompatible nature of both silica and orange essential oil, these results may open the route to sustainable pest control using new biopesticide water-based formulations based on sol-gel microencapsulated orange oil.