Pal, Anusuya, Gope, Amalesh and Iannacchione, Germano S. (2022) Hierarchical exploration of drying patterns formed in drops containing lysozyme, PBS, and liquid crystals. Processes, 10 (5). 955. doi:10.3390/pr10050955 ISSN 2227-9717.

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Abstract

Biological systems, by nature, are highly complex. These systems exhibit diverse hierarchical spatial and temporal features when driven far from equilibrium. The generated features are susceptible to the initial conditions that largely depend on vast parameter space. Extracting information on their properties and behavior thus becomes far too complex. This work seeks to examine the drying kinetics of the drops containing a globular protein (lysozyme (Lys)), phosphate buffer saline (PBS), and thermotropic liquid crystal (LCs). The drying evolution and the morphological crack patterns of these drops are examined using high-resolution microscopy, textural image analysis, and statistical methods. This study observes that the textural parameters can identify the (i) phase separation of the salts present in the PBS and (ii) the LCs’ birefringence during the drying evolution. This birefringence activities of the LCs slow down when the initial PBS concentration is increased from 0.25 to 1× despite using a fixed volume of LCs. To comprehend such a surprising effect, the combinations of (i) Lys+PBS and (ii) PBS+LCs are thoroughly examined. A phase diagram is established as a function of initial concentrations of Lys and PBS. The scanning electron microscopic images of Lys+PBS reveal that the tuning between lysozyme and salt concentrations in PBS plays a significant role in determining the morphological patterns. The Lys drops with and without LCs exhibit two distinct regions: the peripheral ring (“coffee-ring”) and the central ones. This phase-separated ring formation indicates that the film containing Lys and salts might have formed on top of these LCs in the central region, which reduces the optical response (birefringence) of LCs. A physical mechanism is proposed in this paper to anticipate the redistributions of LCs in a multi-component system such as Lys+PBS+LCs

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	Q Science > QC Physics Q Science > QD Chemistry Q Science > QP Physiology
Divisions:	Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine > Science > Physics
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Drying, Lysozyme, Salts, Liquid crystals
Journal or Publication Title:	Processes
Publisher:	MDPI
ISSN:	2227-9717
Official Date:	11 May 2022
Dates:	Date Event 11 May 2022 Published 29 April 2022 Accepted 10 March 2022 Submitted
Volume:	10
Number:	5
Number of Pages:	18
Article Number:	955
DOI:	10.3390/pr10050955
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Publication Status:	Published
Access rights to Published version:	Open Access (Creative Commons)
Date of first compliant deposit:	28 June 2022
Date of first compliant Open Access:	28 June 2022
RIOXX Funder/Project Grant:	Project/Grant ID RIOXX Funder Name Funder ID UNSPECIFIED Worcester Polytechnic Institute http://viaf.org/viaf/312537740 UNSPECIFIED University of Warwick http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000741 RPG-2018-345 Leverhulme Trust http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000275

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