Herein, cotton fabric was treated with an alkaline solution to increase the content of surface hydroxyl groups and then functionalized with UiO-66-NH₂, a nanoporous metal–organic framework. Instrumental analysis of the thus treated fabric revealed that its surface was covered with UiO-66-NH₂ crystals in a uniform manner. The ability of the functionalized fabric to degrade two chemical warfare agents (soman and sulfur mustard) was probed by testing its permeability to these two agents (swatch testing), and the excellent degradation performance was concluded to be well suited for a broad range of filtration and decontamination applications.

Using a lotus leaf as our model, we fabricated an extremely low surface energy micro/nanostructured coating for textiles that repel oil, water, and chemical warfare agents (CWAs) using a simple process that is suitable for large scale production. This coating, called “OmniBlock”, consisted of approximately 200-nm silica nanoparticles, tetraethylorthosilicate, 3-glycidoxypropyl trimethoxysilane, and a perfluorooctanoic acid-free fluoropolymer (Fluorolink S10) that was cross-linked between Si-O-Si groups via a sol-gel process. The perfluorooctanoic acid-free fluoropolymer-coated silica nanoparticles were simply applied to the surface of a cotton fabric by a dip–dry–cure process, forming dense, continuous, and uniform layers of OmniBlock coating. OmniBlock modified the surface of the cotton fibers, creating a rough, high surface area uniform coating with many micro-crevasses. As a result, n-dodecane, water, and CWAs beaded up without wetting the surface, exhibiting large contact angles of 154° for water and 121° for n-dodecane, with a small shedding angle of 5° and contact angle hysteresis of 3.2° for water. The designed coating showed excellent liquid repellence properties against three types of CWAs: 129°, 72°, and 87° for sulfur mustard (HD), soman (GD), and VX nerve agents, respectively. Furthermore, OmniBlock coating shows good mechanical properties under tensile strength and wash tests. This remarkable ability to repel CWAs is likely to have potential military applications in personal protective equipment systems requiring self-cleaning functions.

Conventional or non-conventional chemical threat is gaining huge attention due to its unpredictable and mass destructive effects. Typical military protective suits have drawbacks such as high weight, bulky structure, and unpredictable lifetime. A durable, light, and scalable graphene e-fabric was fabricated from CVD-grown graphene by a simple co-lamination method. The sheet resistance was below 1 kΩ/sq over the wide surface area even after 1000 bending cycles. A graphene triboelectric nanogenerator showed the peak V_OC of 68 V and the peak I_CC of 14.4 μA and 1 μF capacitor was charged successfully in less than 1 s. A wearable chemical sensor was also fabricated and showed a sensitivity up to 53% for nerve chemical warfare agents (GD). DFT calculations were conducted to unveil the fundamental mechanisms underlying the graphene e-fabric sensor. Additionally, protection against chemical warfare agents was tested, and a design concept of graphene-based intelligent protective clothing has been proposed.