Photoinduced microphase separation in block copolymers (BCP) was achieved for the first time, using a rationally designed diblock copolymer composed of two side-chain liquid crystalline polymers (SCLCP). The miscibility of the two blocks was promoted by the miscibility between the two types of mesognic side groups, while upon UV exposure inducing the trans-cis isomerization of azobenzene mesoge...

Phase separation in polymers is important for many technical applications but is difficult to predict theoretically. Recently, extensive experimental studies on the miscibility of polyolefins revealed that these systems display a wider variety of mixing behavior than their chemical similarity suggests. In order to predict phase diagrams of polyolefin blends from pure component properties, we ha...

Usnic acid, a potent antimicrobial and anticancer agent, poorly soluble in water, was complexed to novel antimicrobial polyacrylamides by establishment of strong acidic-base interactions. Thermal and spectroscopic analysis evidenced a molecular dispersion of the drug in the polymers and a complete drug/polymer miscibility for all the tested compositions. The polymer/drug complexes promptly diss...

We propose a new approach to parameterizing the Gibbs energy of a multicomponent solution as a function of temperature, pressure and composition. It uses the quasichemical model in the second nearest neighbour approximation and considers both a polynomial representation (for low pressure) and an exponential decay representation (for moderate-to-high pressure) of the excess molar volume v xs to ...

A fundamental attribute of raft formation in cell membranes is lateral separation of lipids into coexisting liquid phases. Using fluorescence microscopy, we observe spontaneous lateral separation in free-floating giant unilamellar vesicles. We record coexisting liquid domains over a range of composition and temperature significantly wider than previously reported. Furthermore, we establish corr...

Pluto has a heterogeneous surface, despite global haze deposition rate of ~1 micrometer per orbit (Cheng et al., 2017; Grundy 2018). While there could be spatial variation in the rate, this not yet been rigorously quantified, and naively should coat surface more uniformly than was observed. One way (among many) to explain contradiction is for atmospheric pressure at drop low enough interrupt pr...