Fig. 5

Stoichiometric equations describing AOT vesicle growth coupled with “template” polymerization. Equation (1): synthesis of the first PANI-ES segment from four aniline molecules on the surface of AOT vesicles in the presence of HRP as catalyst and H₂O₂ as oxidant, where \({\mathrm{AOT}}_{\mathrm{v}}^ \ominus\) represents an ionised AOT molecule in the vesicle membrane and the right-hand structure is one half-reduced/half-oxidised and protonated tetraaniline repeating unit (called here “segment”) of PANI-ES \(({\mathrm{PANI}} - {\mathrm{ES}}_{{\mathrm{seg}}}^{2 \oplus })\), shown as bipolaron form. Equation (2): chain propagation reaction, where \(({\mathrm{PANI}} - {\mathrm{ES}}_{{\mathrm{seg}}}^{2 \oplus })\)_n represents a PANI-ES product consisting of n tetraaniline units (a more detailed reaction scheme for the formation of \({\mathrm{PANI}} - {\mathrm{ES}}_{{\mathrm{seg}}}^{2 \oplus }\) is shown in the Supplementary Fig. 1²¹). Equation (3): incorporation of AOT molecules from the external micellar AOT solution into the membrane, where \({\mathrm{AOT}}_{\mathrm{m}}^ \ominus\) is the ionised AOT molecule supplied by the micelles and \({\mathrm{PANI}} - {\mathrm{ES}}_{{\mathrm{seg}}}^{2 \oplus }\) represents a segment of PANI-ES (Supplementary Fig. 2)