The studies on Langmuir monolayer of cholesteric acid (ChA) at the air-water (A-W) interface show many interesting results. We have observed different two-dimensional (2D) phases like L′1, L ′ 2 and L2. In this chapter, we describe our studies on the stability of the phases and miscibility of binary mixture of ChA and lipid molecules of different structures. We have chosen the lipid molecules l...

Free-standing giant unilamellar vesicles were used to visualize the complex lateral heterogeneity, induced by ceramide in the membrane bilayer at micron scale using C(12)-NBD-PC probe partitioning under the fluorescence microscope. Ceramide gel domains exist as leaf-like structures in glycerophospholipid/ceramide mixtures. Cholesterol readily increases ceramide miscibility with glycerophospholi...

The pressure–composition (PC) behavior of deuterium in single crystal Pd has been measured over a temperature range extending from room temperature to 393 K. These data allow the determination of (i) relative partial molar enthalpy and entropy, without the contribution of the configuration entropy, for the dilute solid solution phase, (ii) enthalpy and entropy change characterizing the a→a9 pha...

Solid Polymer Electrolytes (SPEs) consisting of ternary blends of charged polymer, neutral polymer, and plasticizer or salt have received much interest for their low volatility and high flexibility of polymers with ion-selective conductivity of the charge-carrying backbone. It has been shown that in these polyelectrolyte blends, where the dielectric constant is relatively low, ionic correlation...

Lipid bilayer membranes composed of DOPC, DPPC, and a series of sterols demix into coexisting liquid phases below a miscibility transition temperature. We use fluorescence microscopy to directly observe phase transitions in vesicles of 1:1:1 DOPC/DPPC/sterol within giant unilamellar vesicles. We show that vesicles containing the "promoter" sterols cholesterol, ergosterol, 25-hydroxycholesterol,...

Thermal behaviour of blends of a liquid crystalline copoly(ester amide) (Vectra B950) with two isotropic polymers has been studied by differential scanning calorimetry. One of the isotropic polymers is an amorphous polymer — polycarbonate, the other is a semi-crystalline polymer — poly(ethylene terephthalate). It was found that the glass transition temperature of polycarbonate decreases with in...

The phase diagrams of ternary mixtures of partly miscible solvents containing a hydrotropic co-solvent exhibit a variable miscibility gap and one critical point. This work investigates the entire monophasic region far from and near to the miscibility gap in octan-1-ol/ethanol/water, for which ultra-flexible micro-emulsions (UFMEs) are observed by small-angle scattering techniques. SWAXS (combin...

Polymeric nanocomposites (PNC) are binary mixtures of strongly interacting, inorganic platelets dispersed in a polymeric matrix. For full exfoliation, the thermodynamic miscibility is required. There are three basic methods of organically-modified clay dispersion that might result in PNC: (1) in polymer solution (followed by solvent removal), (2) in a monomer (followed by polymerization), and (...