Thermodynamically controlled multiphase separation of heterogeneous liquid crystal colloids
Loading...
Access rights
openAccess
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
This publication is imported from Aalto University research portal.
View publication in the Research portal
View/Open full text file from the Research portal
Other link related to publication
View publication in the Research portal
View/Open full text file from the Research portal
Other link related to publication
Date
2023-08-29
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Language
en
Pages
14
Series
Nature Communications, Volume 14, issue 1
Abstract
Phase separation is a universal physical transition process whereby a homogeneous mixture splits into two distinct compartments that are driven by the component activity, elasticity, or compositions. In the current work, we develop a series of heterogeneous colloidal suspensions that exhibit both liquid-liquid phase separation of semiflexible binary polymers and liquid crystal phase separation of rigid, rod-like nanocellulose particles. The phase behavior of the multicomponent mixture is controlled by the trade-off between thermodynamics and kinetics during the two transition processes, displaying cholesteric self-assembly of nanocellulose within or across the compartmented aqueous phases. Upon thermodynamic control, two-, three-, and four-phase coexistence behaviors with rich liquid crystal stackings are realized. Among which, each relevant multiphase separation kinetics shows fundamentally different paths governed by nucleation and growth of polymer droplets and nanocellulose tactoids. Furthermore, a coupled multiphase transition can be realized by tuning the composition and the equilibrium temperature, which results in thermotropic behavior of polymers within a lyotropic liquid crystal matrix. Finally, upon drying, the multicomponent mixture undergoes a hierarchical self-assembly of nanocellulose and polymers into stratified cholesteric films, exhibiting compartmentalized polymer distribution and anisotropic microporous structure.Description
| openaire: EC/H2020/788489/EU//BioELCell Funding Information: G.C. acknowledges the financial support from the Novo Nordisk Foundation (NNF20OC0064350). O.J.R. and G.C. acknowledge the financial support from the Canada Excellence Research Chair initiative (CERC-2018-00006), the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (ERC Advanced grant No. 788489, “BioElCell”), and the Canada Foundation for Innovation (Project number: 38623). Han acknowledges financial support from China Scholarship Council (CSC No. 202006950015) and Academy of Finland (Nos. 318890 and 318891, Competence Centre for Materials Bioeconomy, FinnCERES). Han acknowledges the provision of facilities and technical support by Aalto University at OtaNano-Nanomicroscopy Center (Aalto-NMC) and the assistance of Dr. Wenwen Fang for viscosity measurements. Sincere gratitude goes to Dr. Daniel de las Heras and Tobias Eckert for valuable discussion. Publisher Copyright: © 2023, Springer Nature Limited.
Keywords
Other note
Citation
Tao, H, Rigoni, C, Li, H, Koistinen, A, Timonen, J V I, Zhou, J, Kontturi, E, Rojas, O J & Chu, G 2023, ' Thermodynamically controlled multiphase separation of heterogeneous liquid crystal colloids ', Nature Communications, vol. 14, no. 1, 5277 . https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-41054-7
