Polysaccharide-Based Liquid Crystals

Abstract

About 100 years after the discovery by Reinitzer, Pierre-Gilles de Gennes was bestowed the Nobel Prize for the contribution of revolutionizing the liquid crystals by developing methods to investigate order phenomena in different systems. Liquid crystals are exemplary soft materials of organic nature that have π-conjugation and possess both the properties of liquids (fluidity, the formation of droplets) and solids (particular order and optical properties). Liquid crystals can be classified on the basis of the condition of mesophase formation (thermotropic and lyotropic) and order of particles (nematic and smectic). During the last two decades, the display applications of liquid crystals captivated the researchers, and it stands 100 billion dollars annual global market. At present, more than 4 billion people are enjoying liquid crystal utilization in communication devices such as mobiles. After achieving unprecedented outcomes in display devices, liquid crystals fascinated the chemists, physicists, biologists, and engineers for non-display applications such as biosensors, nanophotonics, light-emitting diodes, lasers, non-linear optics, and photovoltaics. The researchers have developed liquid crystals from biopolymers like nucleic acids, peptides, proteoglycans, lipids, and polysaccharides using suitable conditions. The chapter concentrates on the development of liquid crystals from polysaccharides such as cellulose, cellulose derivatives, amylose, dextrin, chitin, and schizophyllan.