Providing the Warfighter with increased protection and awareness in the field can often come at the expense of comfort and mission effectiveness. Extra protection in the form of specialty uniforms and materiel add physical burden to the Soldier and higher costs to the Army. Multifunctional uniforms could address these problems because they could perform multiple functions reducing the need for multiple materiel. Two critical functions to add to a Soldier’s uniform would be water repellency and catalytic decontamination. Certain enzymes have been shown to be effective and selective chemical decontamination catalysts and here we will use horseradish peroxidase (HRP) as a model enzyme for catalytic activity. A multifunctional coating that is predominantly hydrophobic would repel water, keeping the wearer dry and comfortable, and provide passive protection by allowing aqueous liquids to roll-off. However, enzymes often require aqueous environments for proper activity. This situation presents an opportunity to determine the optimal surface composition needed to achieve the highest enzyme activity without negatively affecting the water repellent properties. In order to create a multifunctional surface that supports both enzyme catalysis and water repellency, we have taken a cue from nature and the skin of the Stenocara desert bettle and fabricated an amphiphilic surface by using the self-assembly of silanes. In collaboration with Boston University, we have used photolithography to pattern micron-scale hydrophilic features against a hydrophobic background. Once patterned, we covalently attach enzymes to the hydrophilic regions to support enzyme catalysis while the hydrophobic background provides the water repellency function. Using photolithography we can control the size and spacing of the hydrophilic domains to determine the effects this has on balancing these two functions. Through the combined used of enzyme assays and surface characterization techniques such as contact angle goniometry, atomic force microscopy and infrared spectroscopy we show that with thoughtful design of surface domains it is possible to find an optimal balance of orthogonal functions.

Balancing multiple orthogonal functions simultaneously on a single surface

Macromolecular Chemistry: The Second Century

[Author Benefits](https://scimeetings.acs.org/?utm_source=pubs_content_marketing&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=0320_MCF_NPI_Launch_Spring_Homepage&ref=pubs_content_marketing)

[How to use SciMeetings](https://storage.googleapis.com/dl.morressier.com/acs/SciMeetings-ACSSpring2020-HowToGuide_M3020-Final.pdf)

[Frequently Asked Questions](https://storage.googleapis.com/dl.morressier.com/acs/SciMtng_ACSNMSp2020_FAQ_M3120_Final.pdf)

ACS Spring 2020 National Meeting & Expo

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.