Journal article

Anomalous phase sequences in lyotropic liquid crystals

  • Lee, Won Bo Department of Chemical Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
  • Mezzenga, Raffaele Department of Physics, University of Fribourg, Switzerland - Nestlé Research Center, Vers-Chez-Les-Blanc, Lausanne, Switzerland
  • Fredrickson, Glenn H. Department of Chemical Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA - Materials Research Laboratory, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA - Department of Materials, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
    31.10.2007
Published in:
  • Physical Review Letters. - 2007, vol. 77, p. 187801
English We present a coarse-grained model in order to describe the unusual sequence of mesophases observed in aqueous solutions of nonionic lipids, such as monoolein. The lipid molecules are modeled as a rigid head and a flexible Gaussian tail, and water is treated explicitly. A key component of the model is thermally reversible hydrogen bonding between the lipid head and water resulting in changes in both head volume and the interactions of the hydrated head with its surroundings. Phase diagrams obtained from unit-cell self-consistent field simulations capture the qualitative thermotropic and lyotropic phase behavior of the monoolein-water system. The unusual phase sequences result from a competition between hydrogen bond formation, changes in head volume and interactions, lipid tail entropy, and the hydrophobic effect.
Faculty
Faculté des sciences et de médecine
Department
Département de Physique
Language
  • English
Classification
Physics
License
License undefined
Identifiers
Persistent URL
https://folia.unifr.ch/unifr/documents/300549
Statistics

Document views: 33 File downloads:
  • mezzenga_aps.pdf: 68