Self-assembly of phospholipid molecules in solutions under shear flows: Microstructures and phase diagrams

Shear-induced microstructures and their phase diagrams were investigated for phospholipid molecules in aqueous solution by dissipative particle dynamic simulation. Self-assembled microstructures, including spherical and cylindrical micelles, spherical vesicles, lamellae, undulated lamellae, perforated lamellae, and continuous networks, were observed under various shear flows and phospholipid concentrations, where the spatial inhomogeneity and symmetry were analysed. A series of phase diagrams were constructed based on the chain lengths under various phospholipid concentrations. The phase distributions showed that the structures with spherical symmetry could be shear-induced to structures with cylindrical symmetry in the dilute solutions. In the semi-concentrated solutions, the lamellae were located in most spaces under zero shear flows, which could be shear-induced into undulated lamellae and then into cylindrical micelles. For the concentrated solutions, the strong shear flows oriented the directions of multilayer lamellae and phase transitions appeared between several cylindrical network structures. These observations on shear-induced microstructures and their distributions revealed a promising approach that could be used to design bio-microstructures based on phospholipid molecules under shear flows.