Phase behavior of lyotropic rigid-chain polymer liquid crystal studied by dissipative particle dynamics

The phase behavior of lyotropic rigid-chain liquid crystal polymer was studied by dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) with variations of the solution concentration and temperature. A chain of fused DPD particles was used to represent each mesogenic polymer backbone surrounded with the strongly interacted solvent molecules. The free solvent molecules were modeled as independent DPD particles, where each particle includes a lump of solvent molecules with the volume roughly equal to the solvated polymer segment. The simulation shows that smectic-B (S_B), smectic-A (S_A), nematic (N), and isotropic (I) phases exist within certain regions in the temperature and concentration parameter space. The temperature-dependent S_B/S_A, S_A/N, and N/I phase transitions occur in the high concentration range. In the intermediate concentration range, the simulation shows coexistence of the anisotropic phases and isotropic phase, where the anisotropic phases can be the S_B, S_A, or N phases. Mole fraction and compositions of the coexisted phases are determined from the simulation, which indicates that concentration of rigid rods in isotropic phase increases as the temperature increases. By fitting the orientational distribution function of the systems, the biphasic coexistence is further confirmed. From the parameter α obtained for the simulation, the distribution of the rigid rods in the two coexistence phases is quantitatively evaluated. By using model and simulation methods developed in this work, the phase diagrams of the lyotropic rigid-chain polymer liquid crystal are obtained. Incorporating the solvent particles in the DPD simulation is critical to predict the phase coexistence and obtain the phase diagrams.