title: Gelled Lyotropic Liquid Crystals.
abstract: In our previous work we were able to prove that gelled bicontinuous microemulsions are a novel type of orthogonal self-assembled system. The study at hand aims at complementing our previous work by answering the question of whether gelled lyotropic liquid crystals are also orthogonal self-assembled systems. For this purpose we studied the same system, namely, water-n-decane/12-hydroxyoctadecanoic acid (12-HOA)-n-decyl tetraoxyethylene glycol ether (C10E4). The phase boundaries of the nongelled and the gelled lyotropic liquid crystals were determined visually and with (2)H NMR spectroscopy. Oscillating shear measurements revealed that the absolute values of the storage and loss moduli of the gelled liquid crystalline (LC) phases do not differ very much from those of the binary organogel. While both the phase behavior and the rheological properties of the LC phases support the hypothesis that gelled lyotropic liquid crystals are orthogonal self-assembled systems, freeze-fracture electron microscopy (FFEM) seems to indicate an influence of the gel network on the structure of the Lα phase and vice versa.
authors.affiliation: †Institute of Physical Chemistry, University of Stuttgart, Pfaffenwaldring 55, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany.
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: †Institute of Physical Chemistry, University of Stuttgart, Pfaffenwaldring 55, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany.
authors.forename: Michaela
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Laupheimer
authors.affiliation: †Institute of Physical Chemistry, University of Stuttgart, Pfaffenwaldring 55, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany.
authors.forename: Natalie
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Preisig
authors.affiliation: †Institute of Physical Chemistry, University of Stuttgart, Pfaffenwaldring 55, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Sottmann
authors.affiliation: ‡Department of Chemistry, University of Paderborn, Warburger Str. 100, 33098 Paderborn, Germany.
authors.forename: Claudia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Schmidt
authors.affiliation: †Institute of Physical Chemistry, University of Stuttgart, Pfaffenwaldring 55, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany.
authors.forename: Cosima
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Stubenrauch