Membrane Mimetic Systems That Contain Catalysts, Semiconductors, and Magnets.

摘要

Chemists are able to interact creatively with physical and life scientists alike. This interaction can be illustrated with membrane mimetic chemistry. This phrase describes the practical exploitation of membrane-mediated processes in relatively simple chemical systems. Simplification is the rule in the rapidly growing discipline. Chemists look at biological membranes as Mother Nature's most able organizers, and indeed, they are. Arrangement of molecules at different regions of a membrane and controlled transport of others are responsible for such important functions as respiration and photosynthesis. Brushing the complexities and details aside, chemists have reconstructed functioning membranelike structures from relatively simple surfactants, known to the public as detergents. The latest membrane mimetic systems are surfactant vesicles. As a first approximation, we can consider surfactant vesicles to be spherical bags with diameters of about a millionth of an inch, i.e., a few hundred angstroms, and a thickness of 50 A. Typically, each vesicle contains 80,000-100,000 surfactant molecules. (Reprints)