Catalytic “MOF-Cloth” Formed via Directed Supramolecular Assembly of UiO-66-NH2 Crystals on Atomic Layer Deposition-Coated Textiles for Rapid Degradation of Chemical Warfare Agent Simulants

Abstract

Highly tunable metal–organic framework (MOF) materials, including, for example, UiO-66-NH2, are known to be effective catalysts to degrade chemical warfare agents (CWAs) with half-lives near 1 min. Therefore, many researchers have been actively working on producing supported MOF materials to improve application effectiveness by using relatively slow solvothermal synthesis or repetitious stepwise layer-by-layer methods. Herein, we demonstrate a facile route to rapidly assemble presynthesized UiO-66-NH2 crystals onto nonwoven polypropylene (PP) fibrous mats at ambient temperature. Crystal assembly is chemically directed using β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) and cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) as surfactant assembly agents, where the agents quickly (within 5 min) self-assemble on the crystal surface and promote physically robust chemical surface attachment while simultaneously impeding solution-phase crystal agglomeration. Furthermore, we find that when the PP is preconditioned using conformal metal oxide thin f...