SafeCoat

In the context of the increase in chemical and biological threat, crisis management procedu-res are of first importance, on both the battlefield and in civilian areas. There is a great need for efficient protection technologies and for post-use decontamination procedures on exposed and thus contaminated materials, required first of all for human beings. This French/German joined project aims at developing new functionalized advanced protection textiles integrating the destructive technology of photocatalysis, for being use as multi-spectra individual protection system against toxic agents. The protection gear of the First Responders, including law enforcement and critical infrastructure Security Units, are targeted first. For improving the protection gear and therefore the people security, the project will take advantage from technological bricks in the fields of photocatalysis and of textile functionnalization. The targeted toxic agents are chemical warfare agents (simulants as well as real ones) and the bacterian spores simulating Anthrax live agent. The project is mainly focused on : (i) the elaboration of new visible light-activated photocatalysts. (ii) the study of new functionalization techniques such as the layer-by-layer approach, incorporating or not innovative carbon technologies for improving security. (iii) the up-scaling of the textile functionalization methods, (iv) the technology integration and manufacturing feasibility of the up-scaled active textiles.