Developing advanced textiles and fabrics that offer protection against aerosolised chemical and biological hazards is of tremendous interest and is indispensable to the safety of our military personnel. Unfortunately, the extensive protection offered by protective clothing is often accompanied by a reduction in moisture vapour permeability, which increases physiological burden on the user. This thesis shows that an enhancement in aerosol particulate filtration of a woven textile fabric can be achieved without impeding its water vapour transmission rate through the application of an ultra-low grammage of nanocellulose coating using a simple papermaking approach. Aerosol particulate filtration was realised in the nanocellulose coating through a size-exclusion mechanism and filtration efficiency was doubled even at a nanocellulose grammage of 0.25 g m-2. Water vapour transmission rate also remained unchanged compared to an uncoated woven fabric due to the hygroscopic nature of nanocellulose. Bacterial cellulose (BC) was then decorated with zeolitic imidazole framework (ZIF-67) to increase the adsorption capacity and barrier properties of textiles. The surface area of ZIF-BC increased when compared with neat BC, leading to an increase in liquid and vapour sorption capacities. Enhanced barrier performance in terms of reduced air permeability and increased aerosol particulate filtration efficiency without sacrificing moisture transmission rate was also achieved when ZIF-BC was coated onto the underlying woven fabric substrate. The ultra-low grammage of BC coating was further optimised by using different organic solvents as the dispersing medium instead of water. An improvement in the quality of nanocellulose coating can be achieved when an ethanol/water mixture was used, attributed to the similarity in solubility parameters between BC and the respective organic solvents.