Biomimetics: a new research opportunity for surface electrochemistry
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FEATURE ARTICLE
Biomimetics: a new research opportunity for surface electrochemistry Jacek Lipkowski 1 Received: 24 April 2020 / Revised: 24 April 2020 / Accepted: 28 April 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Several years ago, I wrote a Foreword for Review of Polarography [1] under similar title in which I argued that biomimetics provides tremendous research opportunities for surface electrochemistry. The research published during past 8 years provided ample examples in support of my predictions. Surface electrochemistry had the golden age in the eighties and the nineties of the last century when new in situ techniques such as infrared reflection absorption spectroscopy (IRRAS), surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy, surface Xray scattering, electrochemical scanning tunnelling spectroscopy (STM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) were introduced to electrochemical research. These tools are now well established, and electrochemical research moved to more applied fields such as energy conversion and storage, environmental science, electrochemistry of materials and electrocatalysis. Even publications on a hot topic of nanomaterials are to a large degree addressing applications of these materials. However, there are several new research opportunities for fundamental surface electrochemistry and new fields where it can make a significant impact. One of them is biomimetics. Biomimetics is defined as “the study of the structure and function of biological systems as models for the design and engineering of materials and machines”. Bilayer lipid membranes (BLMs) are popular models for mimicking biological membranes. BLMs are assembled from phospholipids which are amphiphilic molecules possessing a hydrophobic, hydrocarbon tail and a hydrophilic, polar head group region. Such supported bilayer membranes (s-BLMs) can be formed at surfaces of a variety of materials including glass, silicon, silicon nitride, quartz or mica using either a combination of Langmuir-Blodgett and Langmuir-Schaffer (LB-LS) deposition or vesicle fusion [2]. Lipid bilayers can also be tethered * Jacek Lipkowski [email protected] 1
Department of Chemistry, University of Guelph, N1G 2W1, Guelph, Ontario, Canada
via functionalization to a gold surface (tBLMs). s-BLMs may also be directly deposited (formed by either the vesicle fusion or LB-LS methods) onto an electrode to study the effect of the static electric field on the membrane structure and stability [3, 4]. The sBLMs and tBLM have asymmetric environment. Their proximal leaflet is interacting with the support surface, and the distal leaflet is exposed to the electrolyte solution. A floating bilayer membrane (fBLM) was designed, to ensure that both leaflets of the biomimetic membrane are exposed to water reservoir. The gold electrode surface is coated by a monolayer of a short hydrophilic thiol such as β-thioglucose, and then the phospholipid bilayer is assembled on top of this hydrophilic substrate [5]. Natural biological membranes are frequently exposed to static e
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