Catalytic degradability and anti-permeability of peelable coating based on organophosphate nerve agent simulants

Abstract

The contamination of equipment surfaces with organophosphate nerve agents (NAs) has posed a great threat to the safety of military personnel due to their latent contact risk. Herein, a functional filler GO@UiO-66-NH2 was designed by facile in-situ synthesis of UiO-66-NH2 nanoparticles on graphene oxide (GO) surfaces, which not only maintained the catalytic activity of nanoparticles, but also significantly improved the compatibility of GO carrier with the polyvinyl butyral (PVB) peelable coating. By further optimizing the amount of GO@UiO-66-NH2 added into PVB coating, it was found that a desirable 97.6% hydrolysis conversion of dimethyl p-nitrophenyl phosphate (DMNP, a typical reactivity simulant of NAs) could be realized within 48 h. Moreover, the intrinsic flaky structure of GO@UiO-66-NH2 also endowed the composite coating with effective physical anti-permeability to the aqueous solutions of dimethyl methyl phosphate (DMMP, a representative structure simulant of NAs), especially when the DMMP concentrations were below 50 wt%, no permeated DMMP molecules was detected even after 48 h. In addition, the existence of GO@UiO-66-NH2 further enhanced the mechanical stability of composite coating in both flexibility and peelability, facilitating its convenient removal from substrate surfaces after service. It is expected that this work can provide a feasible strategy for the effective protection of equipment surfaces exposed to NAs.