Complex fluid behavior forms the basis for an immense variety of consumer products across varying sectors while many technologies have complex fluid intermediaries during processing, even when the final product is a solid object.  Different performance attributes may be incorporated or exploited in these applications, but virtually all share a common concern with flow properties and the stability of colloidal particles, controlled through the chemistry on the surface of the particles, and / or dissolved polymers that impact stability and flow through a variety of mechanisms.  Phase separated phospholipid membranes comprise a two dimensional version of colloidal suspensions, where phase separated domains, exhibiting Brownian Motion, interact through a variety of mechanisms.  Some of these can be the same colloidal interactions occurring in classical complex fluids, but others arise entirely from the deformation and bending energy of the continuous membrane phase.  In biological systems, it is thought that such interactions provide inter-raft repulsions that stabilize protein-containing domain and clusters, imparting functions of signaling and trafficking.  In phase separated membranes under consideration for their materials attributes, bending undulation can be either repulsive or attractive, or both, inducing inter-domain ordering and patterns.  This talk explores the conditions which lead to arrayed and interconnected patterns which may find use as functional skins.

Phase separated membranes as 2D complex fluids

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ACS Spring 2023

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