Nanoscale materials, when compared to their bulk components, possess unique properties. In particular, shifts in phase transitions can occur for submicrometer particles. For instance, small particles do not undergo the process of liquid–liquid separation (LLPS). LLPS has applications emulsions such as Janus particles, controllable morphology create drug-rich phases during drug delivery, and is ...

In this work, benzyl alcohol was obtained in 96% excellent yield by hydrolysis of benzyl chloride catalyzedby the recyclable temperature-dependant phase-separation system that comprised the ionic liquid PEG1000-DAIL[BF4], toluene and ferric sulfate under homogeneous catalysis in aqueous media. This novel methodnot only enhanced the yield, but also made the operating units easy workup. The catal...

The solidification behavior of poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) solution during membrane preparation by thermally induced phase separation (TIPS) was investigated. Apparatus newly developed in our laboratory was used to quantitatively measure membrane stiffness during phase separation. In this apparatus, a cooling polymer solution, placed on a stage, is moved upwards and the surface of the poly...

Texture formation in a binary mixture of a flexible polymer and a liquid crystal has been studied using a nonlocal kinetic model for phase separation in the presence of liquid crystalline order. The model takes into account couplings between phase separation, phase ordering, and texture formation. The phase separation-phase ordering coupling leads to orientation normal to local concentration gr...

We present a phenomenological theory for the phase behavior of ternary mixtures of cholesterol and saturated and unsaturated lipids, one that describes both liquid and gel phases. It leads to the following description of the mechanism of the phase behavior: In a binary system of the lipids, phase separation occurs when the saturated chains are well ordered, as in the gel phase, simply due to pa...

Liquid-liquid phase separation, driven by collective interactions among multivalent and intrinsically disordered proteins, is thought to mediate the formation of membrane-less organelles in cells. Using parallel cellular and in vitro assays, we show that the Nephrin intracellular domain (NICD), a disordered protein, drives intracellular phase separation via complex coacervation, whereby the neg...

We have formulated the mixing Gibbs energy density for the micelle phase of an amphiphilic block copolymer solution using mean-field lattice theory. We have found a transition between the micellization and the liquid–liquid phase separation in this solution by comparing the mixing Gibbs energy density for the micelle phase with that for the homogeneous phase. Micellization is preferred over the...

Here we present a continuous molecule separation/concentration system using flowing microbubbles as carriers. Microbubbles continuously generated at the microchannel confluence are able to capture target substances dissolved in the liquid phase, and these bubble carriers are concentrated by continuously removing liquid phase from the stream to achieve the continuous molecule separation. In the ...