In Omar Farha’s lab at Northwestern University, the chemist and his team are working on an unusual craft project in collaboration with the United States Army. They mix powders and liquids into a paint-like consistency, dip swatches of cotton fabric into the liquid, and then leave the beige cloth out to dry. Through this process, they are creating fabrics that can rapidly neutralize some of the deadliest poisons known to humankind: nerve agents.

These fabrics are the latest development in a 10-year effort to design military uniforms that better protect wearers against chemical weapons. Farha’s cloth specifically destroys the nerve agents VX and soman, also known as GD, which is a more toxic relative of sarin. These chemicals disrupt the human central nervous system—essentially stopping the body’s cells from communicating with each other. They can also kill swiftly without needing to be ingested. In 2017, for example, Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, was assassinated in the Kuala Lumpur airport by two women who allegedly smeared VX on his face. Kim died within two hours of exposure.

This cotton fabric, treated with powders that contain special molecules known as metal-organic frameworks, can neutralize some types of nerve agents. Photograph: Omar Farha/Northwestern University

Currently, US soldiers have uniforms that absorb nerve agents, but don’t destroy them. The goal is to make a uniform that can do both, says chemist Jared DeCoste, a researcher with the US Army who was not involved with the work. DeCoste is developing similar fabrics that neutralize mustard gas, a chemical weapon that is not a nerve agent but can severely burn the skin, eyes, and respiratory tract. His group has already incorporated this anti-mustard technology into prototype gas masks.

Despite their nastiness, chemists can neutralize these nerve agents easily enough if they pour them into beakers of solution. Regular water breaks down these toxins slowly over days, but chemists can add specific materials called catalysts that speed up the reaction time to minutes.

Farha’s challenge was to orchestrate this reaction on dry fabric. His team coated the fabric with one key ingredient: a crumpled crystalline molecule called MOF-808 (MOF rhymes with “cough”). This molecule essentially harvests water from ambient air. Water vapor likes to condense onto MOF-808 molecules because of their shape and chemical properties. When MOF-808 makes contact with a nerve agent, the water attached to the molecule breaks down the toxin, while zirconium atoms that recur throughout MOF-808’s crystal serve as the catalyst, accelerating the nerve agent’s breakdown. As long as the fabric is worn in a place where the humidity level is at least 30 percent, it can collect enough water to break down nerve agents in minutes.