A new method of growing metal-organic frameworks on fabrics could lead to clothes that protect soldiers and first responders against chemical warfare agents.
Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are porous, tunable structures made of metal ions linked by organic ligands. More than 20,000 different kinds of MOFs, with potential applications ranging from CO2 capture to fuel storage, have been studied.
Thanks to their high porosity, MOFs are also promising for the degradation of chemical warfare agents. The challenge, says Dennis Lee, a graduate student in chemical and biomolecular engineering at North Carolina State Univ., is that integrating MOFs into fabrics involves toxic solvents and long hours under high temperatures — sometimes up to 120°C. Most fabrics cannot withstand such conditions.
Lee and his colleagues have engineered a method to coat fabrics with MOFs. Using a complex of β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) and cetyl-trimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), the engineers adhered the MOF, in...
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