How Does a Heat Treatment Mitigate Bed Bugs
Dry and superheated steam has proven to be an innovative and effective solution to eliminate bed bugs. There are special systems that produce and superheat the steam in the emission nozzle, up to temperatures of up to 180° C. At the time of emission, the steam is mixed with the cleaning solution, based on water and alcohol containing sodium metasilicate and sodium carbonate, which can safely be used in the presence of humans. The steam jet at 180° C is able to eliminate adult insects, larvae and eggs because it causes a thermal shock. Laboratory tests have shown the effectiveness of these systems in the rapid elimination of bedbugs. A variety of materials (wood, textile, metal etc.) have been used to artificially reproduce the most common places where bedbug nests form. Adult insects and pregnant larvae or females were used in all these simulations. A single treatment with dry and superheated steam at a speed of about 10 cm/ sec was able to eliminate all the eggs present and, to a l...