Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences

Chemical weapons are one of the most dangerous weapons of mass destruction. And if at the dawn of development chemical weapons hit the person through the respiratory tract and then modern samples are able to penetrate even through unprotected skin and mucous areas, causing extensive damage.

Despite the fact that the use of such weapons is prohibited, this does not mean that there is no need to create protection against it. One of the developments in this area is a new kind of fabric that is capable of independently neutralizing warfare agents.

The protective fabric is based on special metal-organic frameworks (MOF), consisting of zirconium and a number of other materials that act as a catalyst and a filter. These structures are capable of neutralizing and completely splitting the various compounds that are part of the chemical weapons. Powdered organometallic structures can also absorb certain types of gases, similar to gas mask filters. These compounds are known for a long time, but their distribution was hampered by extreme instability, because of what they quickly lost their properties.

An elegant solution was found by researchers from the University of North Carolina. They developed a technology for growing MOF crystals directly on the surface of a polypropylene fabric. The obtained samples were tested with DMNP substance (dimethyl 4-nitrophenyl phosphate), which belongs to the class of nerve gases. It took only 5 minutes to completely neutralize the poison agent. In the future, a fabric based on this technology can be used to produce sets of protective clothing not only for the military, but also for rescue services, which often work in areas of man-made disasters and put their lives in danger.

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