Issue 22, 2018

Phase behaviour and applications of a binary liquid mixture of methanol and a thermotropic liquid crystal

Abstract

Herein, we report on the phase behaviour of a binary liquid mixture composed of methanol (MeOH) and the thermotropic liquid crystal 4-cyano-4′-pentylbiphenyl (5CB). The corresponding phase diagram combines features of a conventional liquid–liquid mixture with characteristics that are particular to the nematic liquid crystal. We observe four arrangements as a function of composition and temperature, namely monophasic isotropic, monophasic nematic, biphasic isotropic–isotropic and biphasic isotropic–nematic, with an upper critical solution temperature of 24.4 ± 0.5 °C. The interplay of nematogenic and non-nematogenic species offers tunability of phase mixing and phase composition in an accessible temperature window and provides novel routes for the extraction of target compounds, here exemplarily shown for Crystal Violet, Doxorubicin, Eosin Y, Rhodamine 6G and Sudan IV.

Graphical abstract: Phase behaviour and applications of a binary liquid mixture of methanol and a thermotropic liquid crystal

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
15 Feb 2018
Accepted
21 Apr 2018
First published
23 Apr 2018
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Soft Matter, 2018,14, 4615-4620

Phase behaviour and applications of a binary liquid mixture of methanol and a thermotropic liquid crystal

L. A. Serrano, M. J. Fornerod, Y. Yang, S. Gaisford, F. Stellacci and S. Guldin, Soft Matter, 2018, 14, 4615 DOI: 10.1039/C8SM00327K

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