Phase behaviour of the discotic mesogen 5,10,15,20-tetrakis (4-n-dodecylphenyl)porphyrin under pressure

The phase behaviour of the discotic mesogen 5,10,15,20-tetrakis(4-n -dodecylphenyl)porphyrin (C12TPP) was investigated under hydrostatic pressures up to 300MPa by high pressure DTA and wide angle X-ray diffraction methods. The typical enantiotropic phase transitions of C12TPP, low- to high-temperature crystal (Cr2-Cr1), Cr1-discotic lamellar phase (DL), and DL-isotropic liquid (I) are observed at pressures up to 10MPa. Application of hydrostatic pressure to the sample generates a pressure-induced crystal polymorph (Cr3) between the Cr2 and Cr1 phases, and the phase transitions Cr2-Cr3-Cr1-DL-I occur reversibly in the pressure region between 10 and 180MPa. On heating at higher pressures above 180MPa, the fourth crystal polymorph (Cr4) is formed between the Cr2 and Cr3 phases at lower temperatures, and at the same time the fifth crystal polymorph (Cr5) appears abruptly between the Cr1 and DL phases at high temperatures. The Cr2-Cr4-Cr3-C1-(Cr5)-DL-I transition processes were observed at 180 200MPa. Further increasing the pressure above 270MPa induces entirely different thermal behaviour: only two peaks for the pressure-induced transition between the sixth and fifth polymorphs (Cr6-Cr5) and the Cr5-I transitions are detected at low and high temperatures on heating, while both the DTA and WAXD experiments on cooling show the formation of the DL phase as a monotropic phase between the I and Cr5 phases, indicating the I DL Cr5 Cr6 process. The thermal behaviour was ambiguous and complex in the pressure region between 200 and 260MPa because the peaks for the intermediate crystal transitions were too small to detect with confidence. The two different sequences of the Cr2-Cr4-Cr3-Cr1-DL-I and Cr6-Cr5-(DL)-I processes seems to occur competitively. The T vs. P phase diagram of a sample cooled at 300MPa was studied to determine the triple point of the DL phase and to investigate the phase stability of the pressure-induced crystal polymorphs. The Cr6-Cr5-I transition process was observed on heating at 200 and 300MPa, while the Cr6-Cr5-DL-I process was detected at lower pressures below 100MPa. Since the Cr5-DL transition temperature changes linearly with a slope dT/dP 40 degrees C/100 MPa, while the DL-I transition temperature changes slightly (dT/dP 5.5 degrees C/100MPa), the DL phase forms a triangle in the T vs. P diagram. The triple point of the DL phase was found to be 240.8MPa and 168.8 C. The Cr6 polymorph reorganized to the stable Cr2 form under atmospheric pressure on annealing at room temperature overnight.     

Tackiness and cohesive failure of granular pastes: Mechanistic aspects

Granular pastes are dense dispersions of non-colloidal grains in a simple or a complex fluid. Typical examples are the coating, gluing or sealing mortars used in building applications. We study the rupture of a thick layer of mortar paste in a simple pulling test where the paste is confined between two flat surfaces. It is shown that, depending on the rheological properties of the paste and the plate separation velocity, two main failure modes are obtained. The first mode is the inwards shear flow of the paste with viscous fingering instabilities, similarly to what has been observed with Newtonian fluids and with non-Newtonian colloidal suspensions or polymer solutions. The second failure mode is stemming from the expansion of bubbles, similarly to what has been observed in soft adhesive polymer layers and, more recently, in highly viscous fluids. It is shown that the crossover between the two failure modes is determined by the conditions required to generate a pressure drop able to trigger the growth of pre-existing micro-bubbles smaller than the inter-granular distance.     

Optical Kerr effect in nematic liquid crystals: a molecular dynamics simulation study

Molecular dynamics simulations of the Gay-Berne model have been undertaken and optical response properties calculated for the isotropic and nematic phases. The components of the optical response were calculated for the coordinate system with respect to the director. Furthermore, the response for the components was separated into the orientational and collision induced contributions in order to analyse the mechanism of the optical response. It was observed, in particular, that one of the depolarized components of the response function does not vanish after long times for the nematic phase, unlike in the isotropic phase. This means that the orientation of the director can be permanently changed by instant irradiation with polarized light. The results give a microscopic picture of the optical Kerr effect in nematic liquid crystals.