Temperature–concentration conditions for the formation of liquid crystalline structures in solutions of cellulose and its derivatives

Abstract

Temperature-concentration studies of the liquid crystal structure of cellulose and some simple and complex esters in various solvents have been carried out using polarization-optical methods. The critical concentrations for the transition to the liquid crystalline phase, the pitch of the cholesteric helix, and the parameters of the rod-like domains, were determined. It has been shown that the structure of all studied anisotropic solutions can be represented by a system of chaotically arranged domains of cholesteric liquid crystals with grunzhanov textures, which differ in the size and the step size of the cholesteric helix twist for different solutions.