Biomimetic sol-gel chemistry

There has been a report of enzyme-like activity in a block copolypeptide, which enhances the rate of hydrolysis of tetraethoxysilane (TEOS, a standard reagent in sol-gel chemistry) as a suspension in water. If this block structure is a sequence of units of a hydrophilic amino followed by units of a hydrophobic amino acid, it would be expected to be active at a water-solvent interface. The morphology of the silica that forms is dependent on the structure of the copolymer. This system is biomimetic both in the sense of employing a polypeptide catalyst and in the sense of it functioning in a multiphase system, since biological processes rarely occur in homogeneous solutions. 

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