AUTHOR=Li Guanying , Cortes William , Zhang Qizheng , Zhang Ye 

TITLE=Chemical Oscillation and Morphological Oscillation in Catalyst-Embedded Lyotropic Liquid Crystalline Gels

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Chemistry

VOLUME=Volume 8 - 2020

YEAR=2020

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/chemistry/articles/10.3389/fchem.2020.583165

DOI=10.3389/fchem.2020.583165

ISSN=2296-2646

ABSTRACT=Liquid crystalline gels offer promising means in generating smart materials due to programmable mechanics and reversible shape changes in response to external stimuli. We demonstrate a simple and convenient method of constructing catalyst-embedded lyotropic liquid crystalline (LLC) gels and achieve chemomechanical oscillator by converting chemical waves in Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) reaction. We observe the directed chemical oscillations on LLC sticks accompanied by small scale oscillatory swellings-shrinkages that is synchronized with the chemical waves, of an LLC stick. To amplify the mechanical oscillations, we further fabricate small LLC fibers and achieve macroscopically oscillatory bending-unbending transition of the LLC fiber driven by a BZ reaction.