Traditional materials used for handling chemical warfare agents (CWAs), such as butyl rubber, are effective barriers but suffer from low moisture vapor transport, a property that affects the thermal burden experienced by the user. Without the ability to transport moisture effectively through the barrier, evaporative cooling does not occur. In this work, a new layering strategy for fabricating mixed matrix composites (MMCs) from elastomeric block copolymers and metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) was developed for use as functional barriers against CWAs. MMCs were fabricated using two layers with low MOF loading encasing a core layer with high MOF loading. We term these new materials “MOFwiches” as the MMC resembles a sandwich-like structure. Utilizing elastomeric outer layers also protects the core layer from catastrophic failure, enabling new robust membrane-based technologies. Several MMCs had moisture vapor transport rates two orders of magnitude higher than butyl rubber and one order of magnitude higher than latex. Furthermore, multiple MMCs provided effective reactive barriers against several classes of CWAs whereas current materials simply slow penetration without detoxification. Beyond barrier applications, we demonstrated the effectiveness of several MOFwich materials in areas such as gas separations and sensing.

MOFwich: Sandwiched metal-organic framework-containing mixed matrix composite polymers for chemical warfare agent removal

256th National Meeting (2018)

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