A PANI supported lipid bilayer that contains NhaA transporter proteins provides a basis for a biomimetic biocapacitor.

We designed a supported lipid bilayer (SLB) biomimetic membrane system that comprised polyaniline (PANI) to support a lipid bilayer membrane that incorporated Na+/H+ transporter proteins (NhaA) to give the system the capability of controllable electrogenic ion transport. The high turnover rate of NhaA (∼105 per min) provides the basis for this PANI-SLB-NhaA system to be a high-speed rechargeable biocapacitor that functions as a low-energy-consuming fast switch for biological engineering applications.