Military, firefighter, law enforcement, and medical personnel require high-level protection when dealing with chemical and biological threats in many environments ranging from combat to urban, agricultural, and industrial. Current protective clothing is based on full barrier protection, such as hazardous materials (HAZMAT) suits, or permeable adsorptive protective overgarments, such as those used by the U.S. military. New protective garment systems are envisioned that contain novel features, such as the capability to selectively block toxic chemicals, to chemically destroy toxic materials that contact the fabric, and to detect hazardous agents on the surface of the fabric. New technologies being built into advanced fabrics for enhanced chemical and biological protection include selectively permeable membranes, reactive nanoparticles, reactive nanofibers, biocidal fabric treatments, and conductive-polymer indicators on optical fibers.

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Poly(4-styrenesulfonate) (PSS) has been used to ionically cross-link (glue together) single Langmuir-Blodgett bilayers derived from 1,2,4,5-tetrakis[N,N-dimethyl-N-(1-hexadecyl)-ammoniummethyl]benzene (2a) and tris(N,N-dimethyl-N-hexadecylammoniummethyl)mesitylene (3). The resulting films are of high quality as judged by He/N2 permeation selectivities of ca. 100. Such selectivity is well in excess of the Knudsen diffusion limit of 2.6 and approaches that which has been found for glued bilayers of 5,11,17,23,29,35-hexakis[(N,N,N-trimethylamonium)-N-methyl-37,38,39,40,41,42-hexakis-n-hexamedecyloxy-calix[6]arene hexachloride (1). The significance of these findings to LB technology, in general, is briefly discussed.