Soft Matter Blog

Understanding the health, safety and nutritive aspects of foods is becoming increasing important, as evidence builds to suggest that diet plays a part in some chronic illnesses. As a part of this, the effective nutritive intake may differ from the food content, for example a structure containing a micronutrient is not broken down during digestion. A popular model food system is an emulsion, a liquid-liquid dispersion.

In this hot paper, Marze and Choimet compare the in vitro digestion of emulsions with different formulations using various techniques. They use classical physicochemical methods to build on their previous study (DOI: 10.1039/c2sm26334c) on diffusion methods to check the roles of other factors other than the effect of the triglyceride on digestion. The authors describe mass transfer models that identify the mechanistic paramenters and help the data interpretation. All the techniques showed that the type of triglyceride is the dominant parameter in explaining the emulsion digestion.

In vitro digestion of emulsions: mechanistic and experimental models
Soft Matter, 2012, 8, 10982.  DOI: 10.1039/c2sm26336j. (free to read for a short time)

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Liquid crystals (LCs) can form polygonal cylinder arrays through self-assembly of polyphilic molecules of a rod-like core, two polar end groups and flexible lipophilic lateral chains. Although LC phases are highly dynamic fluid structures, they have the ability to form 2D lattices over large areas because of the self-healing ability and self-assembling. Understanding these process allows for the practical applications of these complex LC phases in organising π-conjugated aromatic in functional organic emitting devices.

In this hot paper, Cheng, Tschierske and co-workers report the synthesis of a series of new 5,5′-diphenyl-2,2′-dithiophene based bolaamphiphiles and their self-assembling into LC honeycombs. The authors show a transition from triangular/rhombic cylinders to a square honeycomb goes through a disordered isotropic state upon reaching a critical lateral chain length of the dithiophene.

Dithiophene based X-shaped bolaamphiphiles: liquid crystals with single wall honeycombs and geometric frustration
Soft Matter, 2012, 8, 10921.  DOI: 10.1039/c2sm26575c (free to read for a short time)

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The in vitro application of the self-organisation process of ‘active self-organisation (AcSO)’, in which a steady state non-equilibrium structure is maintained by a constant supply of energy, is attracting more and more attention in the production of complex structures on various scales. In this hot paper, featured on the front cover of issue 42 of Soft Matter, Kakugo, Gong et al. report the assembly process of microtubules at an air-buffer interface. Using the AcSO method in the presence of ATP resulted in ring-shaped structures. The team introduce an air–buffer interface control system, which combined with the inert chamber system, shows direct in situ observation of the assembly processes.

Formation of ring-shaped assembly of microtubules with a narrow size distribution at an air–buffer interface
Soft Matter, 2012, 8, 10863.  DOI: 10.1039/c2sm26441b (free to read for a short time)

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This Highlight by Silvia Corezzi and colleagues reviews a series of recent numerical studies that evidence the analogies between reversible and irreversible gelation in small functionality particles. These studies also investigate the crossover from chemically controlled to diffusion-controlled aggregation. The authors suggest that these results will be a useful guide for the interpretation of the kinetic in real systems. They use an example of measuring the extent of reaction in epoxy-resin systems to show this.

Chemical and physical aggregation of small-functionality particles
Soft Matter, 2012, 8, 11207.  DOI: 10.1039/c2sm26112j (free to read for a short time)

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