Liquid–Liquid Phase Separation: A Widespread and Versatile Way to Organize Aqueous Solutions

Long term phase separation dynamics in liquid crystal-enriched microdroplets obtained from binary fluid mixtures

“…One is “the number of independent length scales influencing the free energy” 3 that characterises the difference between the nematic and isotropic phases. 1–3 Furthermore, an additional degree of freedom may be related to the boundary effect in microscopic systems, 4 since the interfacial tension cannot be neglected for small droplet sizes. The problem is formulated in the ESI† as a deviation from the bulk phase diagram.…”

Long term phase separation dynamics in liquid crystal-enriched microdroplets obtained from binary fluid mixtures

“…This setup of the problem invokes more degrees of freedom than is allowed from the standard Gibbs phase rule: a 2-component system forming 3 phases (nematic-isotropic droplet phase boundary immersed within a bulk isotropic) has F = 2 3 + 2 = 1 degree of freedom. However, we can introduce two additional degrees of freedom, one is "the number of independent length scales influencing the free energy" 3 that characterises the difference between the nematic and isotropic phases, [1][2][3] another is an additional degree of freedom for small systems. 4 This problem is formulated in the Supplementary Information as a deviation from the bulk phase diagram at R 1 = 0 (with R being the droplet size parameter).…”

“…1 The dynamics of this liquid-liquid phase separation has been the subject of numerous investigations a Department of Chemical Engineering, University College London, Torrington in food science, polymer physics and most recently, cell biology. 2 In nucleation and growth processes, the spontaneous formation of nuclei upon cooling of binary fluid systems has been studied from the perspective of a phase ordering process. [3][4][5][6][7] The dynamics in the late stage of the phase separation received considerable attention.…”

Protein compactness and interaction valency define the architecture of a biomolecular condensate across scales

“…However, the compositionally complex biological condensates may display a rather different internal organization. In particular, in contrast to the dense, continuous phase observed upon macroscopic phase separation in simple polymers, many protein condensates tend to have a lower density and be enriched in water 10 31 32 33 , making them closer in organization to typical colloids 34 . However, due largely to the highly complex nature of biomolecular interactions, the rich concepts and formalisms of colloid chemistry are only now beginning to enter the field of biomolecular condensates 37-39 .…”