I live in Indonesia where there are many mosquitoes and products sold for their control.
The product contains 22ml of liquid, the contents of which likely vary slightly by jursidiction
https://www.whatsinsidescjohnson.com/ph/en/brands/Baygon/baygon__liquid_starter
- Prallethrin - 1.316% (Wikipedia indicates 1.6% in typical products in India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prallethrin)
- Petroleum Distillate (carrier) - Enables the delivery of a product to a surface.
- Butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) - preservative
- Fragrances
They sell a liquid for use in a sprayer like this:
Unlike the plug-in which releases very small amounts of insecticide continuously, a sprayer would be sprayed manually perhaps once or twice a day. The product is sold in quantities of around 300-700ml.
Active ingredients vary by jurisdiction: in the Philippines
- Water
- Transfluthrin / Cyfluthrin
- Isopropanol "wetting agent" - Helps a formula spread across a surface.
- Benzyl Alcohol - anti microbial preservative
- Sodium Lauryl Sulfate - detergent
- Acetyl Tributyl Citrate - Helps ensure even distribution of a product's ingredients.
The Indonesian version is:
https://www.whatsinsidescjohnson.com/id/id/brands/baygon/baygon__liquid_spray_floral
- Water
- Cybermethrin, imiprothrin, prallethrin
- Propylene Glycol Butyl Ether and PEG-60 Hydrogenated Castor Oil instead of the Acetyl Tributyl Citrate
- Methylisothiazolinone & Benzisothiazolinone instead of the benzyl alcohol
- Ethoxylated Alcohol in place of the SLS
Another company sells a similar liquid product to the Baygon liquid
This is sold in two formulations, the regular and the water-based which notes
'tanpa minyak tanah' (literally 'without ground oil', i.e. paraffin - this is not a very technical term and obviously means that the alternative product contains some kind of petroleum distillate)
Both regular and water-based formulations contain the same active ingredients: 1.14% prallethrin, 0.29% cyfluthrin.
I presume that there are particular properties of prallethrin that make it better for vaporization with an electric plug-in device (which I guess is not close to boiling - this should be evaporation) than certain other pyrethroids, but the question is:
- if one were to refill the plug-in device with the 'spray'-type 1.14% prallethrin, 0.29% cyfluthrin petroleum-based product, would it be reasonable to expect it to have similar dispersal effectiveness to the 1.32% prallethrin petroleum-based 'vaporizer' product
- given the existence of 'water-based' and 'petroleum-based' products with the same insecticides, is the 'water-based' less effective at dispersal, and does it have any advantage beyond presumably some sort of antipathy towards hydrocarbon vapours for health reasons.