The mechanism of the horseradish peroxidase (HRP)-H 2 O 2 -catalysed polymerisation of aniline in the presence of AOT vesicles was investigated. AOT (= bis-(2-ethylhexyl)sulfosuccinate) served as vesicleforming surfactant and dopant for obtaining at pH = 4.3 and room temperature within 24 h under optimal reaction conditions the green emeraldine salt form of polyaniline in 90-95% yield. Based on UV/VIS/NIR and EPR measurements carried out during the polymerisation reaction, and based on changes in aniline and H 2 O 2 concentrations and HRP activity, a mechanism is proposed. According to this ''radical cation mechanism'' chain growth occurs on the vesicle surface through addition of aniline radical cations to the growing polymer chain. H 2 O 2 plays two essential roles, to oxidise the heme group of HRP, and to oxidise the growing polymer chain for allowing the stepwise addition of new aniline radical cations. The entire reaction can be divided into three kinetically distinct phases. In the first rapid phase (5-10 min), the actual polymer formation takes place to yield the emeraldine salt form of polyaniline in its bipolaron state. In the second and third slower phases (1-2 days) the bipolarons transform into polarons with unpaired electrons. During the reaction, the HRP activity is decreasing until the enzyme becomes inactive after polymer formation. Reactions carried out with partially deuterated anilines were analysed by 2 H magic-angle spinning (MAS) NMR spectroscopy to demonstrate the regioselectivity of the chain growth: para-coupling of the aniline units clearly dominates. Association of the formed polyaniline with the vesicle membrane is evident from cryo-TEM and SANS measurements.

The aniline dimer PADPA (= p-aminodiphenylamine = N-phenyl-1,4-phenylenediamine) was polymerized to poly-(PADPA) at 25 °C with Trametes versicolor laccase (TvL)/O 2 as catalyst and oxidant and in the presence of vesicles formed from sodium bis(2-ethylhexyl) sulfosuccinate (AOT) as templates. In comparison to the previously studied polymerization of aniline with the same type of enzyme−vesicle system, the polymerization of PADPA is much faster, and considerably fewer enzymes are required for complete monomer conversion. Turbidity measurements indicate that PADPA strongly binds to the vesicle surface before oxidation and polymerization are initiated. Such binding is confirmed by molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, supporting the assumption that the reactions which lead to poly(PADPA) are localized on the vesicle surface. The poly(PADPA) obtained resembles the emeraldine salt form of polyaniline (PANI-ES) in its polaron state with a high content of unpaired electrons, as judged from UV/ vis/NIR, EPR, and FTIR absorption measurements. There are, however, also notable spectroscopic differences between PANI-ES and the enzymatically prepared poly(PADPA). Poly(PADPA) appears to be similar to a chemically synthesized poly(PADPA) as obtained in a previous work with ammonium peroxydisulfate (APS) as the oxidant in a mixture of 50 vol % ethanol and 50 vol % 0.2 M sulfuric acid (J. Phys. Chem. B 2008, 112, 6976−6987). ESI-MS measurements of early intermediates of the reaction with TvL and AOT vesicles indicate that the presence of the vesicles decreases the extent of formation of unwanted oxygen-containing species in comparison to the reaction in the absence of vesicles. This is the first information about the differences in the chemical composition of early reaction intermediates when the reaction carried out in the presence of vesicles under optimal conditions is compared with a template-free system.

The aniline dimer N-phenyl-1,4-phenylenediamine (= p-aminodiphenylamine, PADPA) was oxidized with horseradish peroxidase isoenzyme C (HRPC) and hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2) to oligo(PADPA) in an aqueous suspension of 80-100 nm-sized anionic vesicles at pH = 4.3 and at T  25 °C. The vesicles were formed from AOT (= sodium bis(2-ethylhexyl) sulfosuccinate) and served as templates for obtaining oligo(PADPA) as emeraldine salt form of polyaniline (PANI-ES) in the polaron form. The optimal reaction conditions for obtaining a stable oligo(PADPA)-AOT vesicle suspension with a high conversion and low amounts of HRPC were elaborated by using UV/vis/NIR spectroscopy. The formation of PANI-ES type products was confirmed by in situ UV/vis/NIR, Raman and EPR spectroscopy measurements. However, HPLC-MS analyses indicated that the oligo(PADPA) products obtained are not

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EPR spectroscopy was used to examine the magnetic properties of two enzymatically synthesized polyaniline (PANI) samples obtained in the presence of submicrometer-sized vesicles formed from sodium bis(2-ethylhexyl)sulfosuccinate (AOT) as templates. PANI-HRPC-AOT was synthesized with horseradish peroxidase isoenzyme C (HRPC) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) as oxidant while PANI-TvL-AOT was prepared with Trametes versicolor laccase (TvL) and dioxygen (O2) as oxidant. A commercial conductive sample of the emeraldine salt form of polyaniline (PANI-ES) was also used for comparison in order to correlate the experimental data obtained for PANI-HRPC-AOT and PANI-TvL-AOT with the properties of the well-characterized PANI-ES. It was shown that a model based on the concept of correlated polaronic bands could be applied for the interpretation of the EPR spectra of all three examined samples, although PANI-HRPC-AOT and PANI-TvL-AOT were significantly less conductive than PANI-ES. The magnetic properties of the PANI samples could be related to their conductivities, whereby a low conductivity was ascribed to decreased interchain spin interactions which were detectable from a splitting of the triplet spectrum at low temperatures (5-10 K). The obtained effective distance between the polyaniline chains is larger for enzymatically synthesized PANI than for PANI-ES, most likely mainly due to the presence of AOT which could not be removed completely during the work-up. AOT influences the chain conformation and the average chain-chain distance.