Novel Enzymatic Polyethylene Oxide-Polyphenol System for Ionic Conductivity

Phenol formaldehyde resins are of interest for different industrial and electronic applications. However, the toxic nature of formaldehyde and the extreme reaction conditions for the synthesis of these polymers have severely limited their use in today's markets. We present here a novel, biocatalytic approach where the enzyme horseradish peroxidase is used to polymerize phenol in the presence of a template such as polyethylene oxide. Here the template assists as a surfactant that can both emulsify the phenol and polyphenol chains during polymerization and provide water/solvent solubility of the final polyphenol/template complex. The reactants and the reaction conditions of this method are mild and result in high molecular weight, electrically and optically active, water-solvent soluble complexes of polyphenol and the template used. High molecular weight water-soluble polyphenol/polyethylene oxide complexes were formed.