Fig. 3: Revealing the multiphase separation into different categories.
From: Thermodynamically controlled multiphase separation of heterogeneous liquid crystal colloids
Three-dimensional phase diagram of the CNC-PEG-dextran aqueous mixture that highlight the interplay between LCPS of CNCs and LLPS of polymers at 21 °C (a) and 50 °C (b), respectively. Among which, the LLPS process is inhibited at the left side of the CNC-PEG-dextran coexistence plane (gray dots) whereas the right-side area is active for LLPS. With the contribution of LCPS, the resulting multiphase regions are modulated by the critical CNC concentrations (colored horizontal planes). c When the CNC concentration exceeds 4.5 wt%, the multiphase transition area can be defined as two-phase region (only LCPS, points 1 and 4), inverted phase region (where a cholesteric phase is on top of an isotropic phase, points 2 and 5), and a four-phase region (points 3 and 6) due to changes of the polymer composition.
