[Polaron mechanism of background conductivity of lipid bilayer membranes]

The difference between standard chemical potentials of polaron and ion in electrolyte solution is represented as a sum of Born energy and surface free energy of the polaron. The reasons why surface tension of polaron should be smaller than that of bulk phases boundary are mentioned. Surface tension of the polaron sigma 1 was shown to be equal to 10(-2) J/m2 for typical BLM with specific resistance 10(8) ohm cm2. For such BLM average value of polaron radius constitutes 0.58 nm which corresponds to 28 water molecules per polaron. Another experimentally verifiable result is the correlation (formula; see text) = (epsilon m) (gamma is distribution coefficient of ions between BLM and electrolyte solution). This correlation was obtained assuming independence of sigma 1 on epsilon m.