Author Archives: Liu K, Chen D, Marcozzi A, Zheng L, Su J, Pesce D, Zajaczkowski W, Kolbe A, Pisula W, Müllen K, Clark NA, Herrmann A

Thermotropic liquid crystals from biomacromolecules.

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2014 Dec 15;

Authors: Liu K, Chen D, Marcozzi A, Zheng L, Su J, Pesce D, Zajaczkowski W, Kolbe A, Pisula W, Müllen K, Clark NA, Herrmann A

Abstract
Complexation of biomacromolecules (e.g., nucleic acids, proteins, or viruses) with surfactants containing flexible alkyl tails, followed by dehydration, is shown to be a simple generic method for the production of thermotropic liquid crystals. The anhydrous smectic phases that result exhibit biomacromolecular sublayers intercalated between aliphatic hydrocarbon sublayers at or near room temperature. Both this and low transition temperatures to other phases enable the study and application of thermotropic liquid crystal phase behavior without thermal degradation of the biomolecular components.

PMID: 25512508 [PubMed – as supplied by publisher]

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