Studies of Lyotropic Liquid Crystals

Abstract

NMR studies of liquid crystalline substances have been extensively used to derive information on the mesophase structure, molecular arrangements, mobilities and mechanism of binding of small ions or molecules. Such studies of lyotropics are particularly important since these systems have fairly well-defined physical and chemical properties and can serve as models for the more complicated biological systems [166, 167]. The smectic liquid crystalline lipid-water phase serves as a particularly good model for the study of some properties of biological membranes since both biomembranes and lecithin-water mixtures have a bilayer structure [168–175]. The mechanism of binding of ions and molecules in lyotropic liquid crystals provides a deeper insight into these aspects of passive membrane functions.