Simulation of phase separation of polymer–liquid-crystal mixtures and the effect of confining external surfaces

Abstract

A Monte Carlo simulation is performed on a lattice model of a binary mixture of nematogenic liquids and polymers to study the main aspects of phase separation including the influence of external surfaces. The system was investigated at various temperatures, concentrations, and degrees of polymerization. The results seem to fit well within Flory-Huggins theory predictions. It is also shown that in some cases the anisotropy plays an important role in structure formation. The influence of the external surfaces on the condensation of one of the phases was studied on systems that experience the separation by nucleation and growth. It has been noticed that the surfaces that prefer nematogenic molecules act as better condensation nuclei, especially if they are ordered.

Phase field simulation of monotectic transformation for liquid Ni-Cu-Pb alloys

“…Evidently, if the surface segregation is not incorporated, the dynamic morphologies of alloy melt show a transition from disperse microstructure into bicontinuous microstructure with the increase of the fluidity parameter. Bažec and Žumer [9] found that the surface effect has a great influence on phase separation. In our model, the surface free energy is logically considered.…”

“…Up to now, theoretical investigation of phase separation mainly focuses on high molecular weight polymers [8,9] , water [10] , water-oil-surfactants [11] , bilayer lipid membranes [12] and lysozymes [13] . Experimental studies [2,14,15] on phase separation extend to ternary alloys, which mainly explores the phase separation mechanism by analyzing solidified microstructures.…”

A comparative simulation study on three lattice systems for the phase separation of polymer-dispersed liquid crystals

“…To investigate the behaviour of the mixture in the bulk, the separation correlation length [22,23] ξ m and ξ lc were evaluated. According to [22], Γ(R) denotes the correlation function such that…”

Application and New Developments in Polymer‐Dispersed Liquid Crystal Simulation Studies

“…Bažec and Žumer107 performed an MC simulation on a lattice model of a binary mixture of nematogenic liquids and polymers to study the main aspects of phase separation including the influence of external surfaces. During the time of thermalization, the polymer bonds were fixed.…”