LIQUID-CRYSTAL STATE IN THE SYSTEM
POLYSACCHARIDE-MESOPHASOGENIC SOLVENT

A. B. Shipovskaya and G. N. Timofeev

UDC 544.23:544.252.4

Data on the influence of vapors of nitromethane - 
a mesophasogenic solvent, i.e., a solvent forming with a polymer a 
lyotropic liquid-crystal phase - on the structure of acetate fibers 
are presented. It has been established that nitromethane in the vaporous 
state initiates in the polymer matrix orientation processes: induced 
anisotropy, spontaneous elongation of the fiber (which, in terms of 
Flory, is considered to be the transition to the nematic phase), as 
well as the process inverse to the self-elongation discovered for 
the first time, etc. It has been shown that the realization of both 
the direct and inverse processes of spontaneous deformation of cellulose 
acetate in mesophasogenic solvent vapors is associated with the optical 
asymmetry, i.e., the optical activity of the polysaccharide.

N. G. Chernyshevskii Saratov State University, 83 
Astrakhanskaya Str., Saratov, 410026, Russia; email: ShipovskayaAB 
@chem.sgu.ru. Translated from Inzhenerno-Fizicheskii Zhurnal, Vol. 
79, No. 1, pp. 139-147, January-February, 2006. Original article 
submitted October 13, 2004.