Crystalline morphology developing from cholesteric mesophase in cyanoethylchitosan solutions

Two completely different crystals can grow from cyanoethyl chitosan/formic acid solutions in which the anisotropic liquid crystalline (LC) and isotrop ic phases coexisted. One was normal spherulites developing from isotropic r egion, and the other was cholesteric-like crystallites developing from meso phase region. The latter had similar optical characters as fingerprint text ure. This implies that the crystal structure in solution cast film from cho lesteric LC phase remained the main structure characters of cholesteric LC texture. A model is presented to explain the crystallization process from t hese liquid crystalline polymer solutions.