Synthesis of macroscopic monolithic metal-organic gels for ultra-fast destruction of chemical warfare agents

Chuan Zhou; Shouxin Zhang; Hongjie Pan; Guang Yang; Lingyun Wang; Cheng-An Tao; Heguo Li

doi:10.1039/d1ra01703a

Synthesis of macroscopic monolithic metal-organic gels for ultra-fast destruction of chemical warfare agents

RSC Adv. 2021 Jun 23;11(36):22125-22130. doi: 10.1039/d1ra01703a. eCollection 2021 Jun 21.

Authors

Chuan Zhou^{1

2}, Shouxin Zhang^{1

2}, Hongjie Pan², Guang Yang², Lingyun Wang², Cheng-An Tao³, Heguo Li²

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of NBC Protection for Civilians Beijing 102205 PR China.
² Research Institute of Chemical Defense Beijing 102205 PR China.
³ College of Liberal Arts and Science, National University of Defense Technology Changsha 410073 China.

Abstract

The potential threat that has originated from chemical warfare agents (CWAs) has promoted the development of advanced materials to enhance the protection of civilian and military personnel. Zr-based metal-organic frameworks (Zr-MOFs) have recently been demonstrated as excellent catalysts for decomposing CWAs, but challenges of integrating the microcrystalline powders of Zr-MOFs into monoliths still remain. Herein, we report hierarchically porous monolithic UiO-66-X xerogels for the destruction of CWAs. We found that the UiO-66-NH₂ xerogel with a larger pore size and a higher surface area than the UiO-66-NH₂ powder possessed better degradability of 2-chloroethyl ethyl sulfide (2-CEES), which is a sulfur mustard simulant. These UiO-66-X xerogels exhibit outstanding performance for decomposing CWAs. The half-lives of vesicant agent sulfur mustard (HD) and nerve agent O-ethyl S-[2-(diisopropylamino)ethyl] methylphosphonothioate (VX) are as short as 14.4 min and 1.5 min, respectively. This work is, to the best of our knowledge, the first report on macroscopic monolithic UiO-66-X xerogels for ultrafast decomposition of CWAs.