Successive degradation of organophosphate nerve agent by integrating the merits of artificial enzyme and metal nanoparticle catalyst

Abstract Organophosphate (OP) nerve agents are highly toxic and widely used as pesticides and chemical weapons. In this work, a facile approach for cascade degradation of OP nerve agent simulants is established via a hybrid material, which is prepared by growth of Pd nanoparticles (PdNPs) in metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) (PdNPs@PCN-224) (PCN = porous coordination network). PCN-224 acts not only as the support material but also as an effective enzyme mimic of organophosphorus hydrolysis (OPH), which can completely degrade paraoxon, the model OP compounds, into p-nitrophenol (p-NP). Thereafter, the degraded product (p-NP) with moderate toxicity is further efficiently reduced into p-aminophenol (p-AP) with less toxicity by NaBH4 under the catalyzation of PdNPs. This work displays a great potential to construct highly bifunctional catalysts by integrating the merits of artificial enzymes and metal NP catalysts, which are promising for applications in the successive degradation of OP nerve agents.