Controllable ingestion and release of guest components driven by interfacial molecular orientation of host liquid crystal droplets

Controllable construction and manipulation of artificial multi-compartmental structures are crucial in understanding and imitating smart molecular elements such as biological cells and on-demand delivery systems. Here, we report a liquid crystal droplet (LCD) based three-dimensional system for controllable and reversible ingestion and release of guest aqueous droplets (GADs). Induced by interfacial thermodynamic fluctuation and internal topological defect, microscale LCDs with perpendicular anchoring condition at the interface would spontaneously ingest external components from the surroundings and transform them as radially assembled tiny GADs inside LCDs. Landau-de Gennes free-energy model is applied to describe and explain the assembly dynamics and morphologies of these tiny GADs, which presents a good agreement with experimental observations. Furthermore, the release of these ingested GADs can be actively triggered by changing the anchoring conditions at the interface of LCDs. Since those ingestion and release processes are controllable and happen very gently at room temperature and neutral pH environment without extra energy input, these microscale LCDs are very prospective to provide a unique and viable route for constructing hierarchical 3D structures with tunable components and compartments.

Automated summary

We report a three-dimensional system based on liquid crystal droplets (LCDs) for controllable and reversible ingestion and release of guest aqueous droplets (GADs). Microscale LCDs ingest external components and transform them into radially assembled tiny GADs inside the LCDs, driven by interfacial thermodynamic fluctuations and internal topological defects. The release of ingested GADs can be actively triggered by changing the anchoring conditions at the interface of the LCDs. These controllable processes can occur at room temperature and neutral pH without additional energy input, providing a unique and viable route for constructing hierarchical 3D structures.