Electrospinning has become a proven method to construct liquid crystal-based composite materials because of the variety of higher-order structures (i.e., helicity, cavities of different shapes or sizes, fiber morphology) which can be produced using a single method. Further, incorporation of liquid crystals into flexible architectures enables the potential to develop materials such as wearable devices and dynamic color textiles.  Although nematic thermotropic liquid crystals have been encapsulated via coaxial electrospinning, they have been limited by only a small range of LC phases and need for dopants to induce helicity. In contrast, lyotropic liquid crystals, have been shown to have a variety of LC phases dependent upon their concentration and have shown to adopt helical architectures without the need for added dopants.  Here, encapsulation of lyotropic liquid crystals, including sunset yellow and cromolyn sodium, into the core of polylactic acid (PLA) fibers was achieved by coaxial electrospinning for the first time. The fibers were examined by optical microscopy, SEM, DSC, and Raman mapping. The effects of confinement on the lyotropic liquid crystals is discussed within.<br/>

Confinement of lyotropic liquid crystals in polymer fibers via coaxial electrospinning

2019 Spring National Meeting

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