Issue 37, 2019

Elastic sheath–liquid crystal core fibres achieved by microfluidic wet spinning

Abstract

While coaxial polymer sheath–liquid crystal core fibres attract interest for fundamental research as well as applied reasons, the main method for achieving them so far, electrospinning, is complex and has significant limitations. It has proven particularly challenging to spin fibres with an elastic sheath. As an alternative approach, we present a microfluidic wet spinning process that allows us to produce liquid crystal core–polyisoprene rubber sheath fibres on a laboratory scale. The fibres can be stretched by up to 300% with intact core–sheath geometry. We spin fibres with nematic as well as with cholesteric liquid crystal in the core, the latter turning the composite fibre into an elastic cylindrical photonic crystal. Iridescent colours are easily observable by the naked eye. As this coaxial wet spinning should be amenable to upscaling, this could allow large-scale production of innovative functional fibres, attractive through the various responsive characteristics of different liquid crystal phases being incorporated into an elastic textile fiber form factor.

Graphical abstract: Elastic sheath–liquid crystal core fibres achieved by microfluidic wet spinning

  • This article is part of the themed collection: Photonics

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
15 Jūl. 2019
Accepted
30 Aug. 2019
First published
02 Sept. 2019
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

J. Mater. Chem. C, 2019,7, 11588-11596

Elastic sheath–liquid crystal core fibres achieved by microfluidic wet spinning

L. W. Honaker, S. Vats, M. Anyfantakis and J. P. F. Lagerwall, J. Mater. Chem. C, 2019, 7, 11588 DOI: 10.1039/C9TC03836A

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements