Angew. Chem. Int. Edn doi: 10.1002/anie.200802932 (2008)

Protective clothing can provide a first line of defence against chemical-warfare agents such as mustard gas, but the relief is limited if the perilous substance remains on the fabric.

Valérie Keller of Louis Pasteur University in Strasbourg, France, and her colleagues have a solution. They show that cotton textiles coated by dipping or spraying with photocatalytic particles can burn up simulants of blistering and nerve agents within minutes when irradiated with artificial solar-like light. The particles consist of titanate nanotubes encrusted with crystals of tungsten trioxide, and their light-induced degradation of organic molecules resembles that of self-cleaning tiles and glass coated with titanium dioxide.