A Review on NBC Body Protective Clothing

Body protective clothing and suits against NBC agents are playing vital role in the NBC defence during war and training scenarios. Hence, reviewing about the past, present and expected future development in this NBC protective clothing area is an important task. This review brings out a sequence related to the NBC protective clothing, their type, various materials available for the development of NBC clothing, their evaluation procedures, washing methodologies, decontamination methods. Moreover, the futuristic trends in NBC protective clothing such as detection and decontamination integrated NBC protective clothing based on electrospun nanofiber technology and molecularly imprinted polymer technology are also reviewed and discussed. 1. GENERAL INTRODUCTION The protective clothing used in the World War I against chemical warfare agents (CWA) consisted of rubber clothing, which, together with gloves and boots, to cover the entire body apart from that protected by the mask. Clothing of this kind is usually characterized as impermeable. This means that CW agents cannot pass through the material and also the fact that perspiration released from the skin is also prevented from passing out. Consequently, to wear clothing of this kind for longer periods is extremely uncomfortable and in hot climates the period during which protective clothing of this kind can be worn will be very short. In order to reduce the heat load developed due to wearing of impermeable protective clothing, permeable clothing was designed and developed, where a layer of finely distributed active carbon, either bound in polyurethane foam or as particles of carbon, is bound between two layers of textile. A layer of this kind consisting of active carbon which permits water vapour released from the body to pass through. The active carbon absorbs CWA and thereby prevents them from passing through to the skin. This layer of carbon is never used alone but is combined with different textiles. A present CWA protective suit is an example of clothing made of permeable material. The largest difference is that inside the impregnated outer material there is a layer of active carbon on a suitable carrier. The CWA protective suit can be used instead of a battle dress or as an overall placed over the uniform. An alternative is to use inner clothing with a layer of carbon which is worn underneath the normal uniform. Impermeable suits can be used in severely contaminated environments, e.g., during decontamination. The heat load can be reduced by ventilating the clothing with fans. However, this solution is too vulnerable to be used. *Address correspondence to this author at the Defence Research and Development Establishment, Gwalior-474 002, India; Tel: +917512341848, Ext. 162; Fax: +917512341148; E-mail: [email protected], [email protected] In order to achieve short-term CWA protection, it is possible to use overalls made of different plastic material. Many research and development occurred around the globe to achieve the body protection equipment time to time and are discussed sequentially thought this article.