Spontaneous-assembly of phospholipid monolayers via adsorption onto gold.

imidazole, which functions as an axial ligand for Mn'". This system was used to catalyze the epoxidation of water-soluble (2,5-dihydrofuran, 3) and -insoluble (styrene, 4) alkene^.^ The reactions followed first-order kinetics. GCMS and comparison with authentic samples showed that for 3 the reaction products are 3,4-epoxytetrahydrofuran and the ring-opened compound trans-3,4-dihydroxytetrahydrofuran (molar ratio 1 :2 .5) . For 4 only the ring-opened product 1,2-dihydroxyI-phenylethane could be detected. Turnover numbers (mol of oxygenated product/(mol of MnfI1.h)) for 3 and 4 amounted to 8 and 1.3, respectively. As a side reaction, the catalytic system produces water out of H2 and 0,. The selectivity of substrate conversion vs. water formation was 2.5%. In separate experiments we checked that no oxygenation took place when any of the aforementioned components were omitted. In summary, catalytic systems that mimic complex enzyme functions can be designed by using polymerized vesicles as microreactors.