| The work in this dissertation reports the investigation of the induction of chirality by introducing small amounts of chiral polymers in lyotropic surfactant systems. The lyotropic surfactant systems investigated can be classified as cationic, anionic and cromonic systems. Chiral induction of small amounts of Cellulosic and amino acid polymers were investigated. Of all the three class of lyotropics investigated, anionic lyotropic nematic systems were twisted the strongest by the chiral polymers. But, they also were found to phase separate. Catonic lyonematics were found to be stable when small amount of polymers were introduced. The relationship between the helical twisting power (HTP) of the polymers to their molecular weight, molecular weight distribution, pH, salt effect were investigated. All lyotropic nematic phases tend to phase separate when the polymer molecular weights are very high. The HTP values are weakly dependent on the length of the polymer chains and the density of chiral centers have strong correlation to the chiral inductability. The weakest interaction between lyotropics and chiral polymers was found to be for cromonic systems. |
