Structural Arrest and Phase Transition in Glassy Nanocellulose Colloids

From drying blood to oil paint, the developing of a glassy phase from colloids is observed on a daily basis. Colloidal glass is solid soft matter that consists of two intertwined phases: a random packed particle network and a fluid solvent. By dispersing charged rod-like cellulose nanoparticles into a water-ethylene glycol cosolvent, here we demonstrate a new kind of colloidal glass with a high liquid crystalline order, namely, two general superstructures with nematic and cholesteric packing states are preserved and jammed inside the glass matrix. During the glass formation process, structural arrest and phase transition occur simultaneously at high particle concentrations, yielding solid-like behavior as well as a frozen liquid crystal texture that is because of caging of the charged colloids through neighboring long-ranged repulsive interactions.