Enzymatic synthesis of conductive polyaniline using linear BSA as the template in the presence of sodium dodecyl sulfate

Enzymes as biocatalysts with powerful catalytic activities and extreme specificities have been applied in various polymer syntheses, which are considered to be environmentally acceptable processes. In this study, we explored the possibility of using bovine serum albumin (BSA), an innate protein, as the template for the synthesis of conductive polyaniline (PANI) by horseradish peroxidase (HRP), and we found that the denatured BSA effectively promoted the synthesis of conductive PANI in the presence of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) based on UV-vis spectrophotometer analysis. Meanwhile, parameters influencing the activity of enzyme and polymerization were investigated, and PANI was characterized by FTIR, TGA, and cyclic voltammetry. Our results demonstrated that the enzymatic synthesized PANI by using uncoiled BSA:SDS as the template presented excellent electrochemical properties through dedoping/doping procedure.