Mosaic equilibrium

Morse potential phys chem An approximate potential associated with the distance r between the nuclei of a diatomic molecule in a given electronic state it is V(r) = D 1 - expl - a(r - rj where q is the equilibrium distance, D is the dissociation energy, and n is a constant. mors po.ten-chol mosaic gold See stannic sulfide. mo za-ik. gold ... 

More than half a century ago, Bawden and Pirie [77] found that aqueous solutions of tobacco mosaic virus (TMV), a charged rodlike virus, formed a liquid crystal phase at as very low a concentration as 2%. To explain such remarkable liquid crystallinity was one of the central themes in the famous 1949 paper of Onsager [2], However, systematic experimental studies on the phase behavior in stiff polyelectrolyte solutions have begun only recently. At present, phase equilibrium data on aqueous solutions qualified for quantitative discussion are available for four stiff polyelectrolytes, TMV, DNA, xanthan (a double helical polysaccharide), and fd-virus. 

In mosaic non-equilibrium thermodynamics (MNET) [23,24] this phenomenon is... 

Westerhoff, H.V. and Van Dam, K. (1984) Mosaic Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics of (the Control of) Energy Metabolism. Elsevier, Amsterdam, in the press. 

It has been already pointed out that the energy of interaction between dispersed particles depends on the particle size. As a result, for large particles, and especially for anisometric ones, oriented in a certain way with respect to each other, the presence of a secondary minimum may be of importance. For such particles this secondary minimum may be sufficiently deep in comparison with kT. In some cases these systems may experience a peculiar colloid phase transition from a free disperse system (at low concentrations of dispersed phase) to crystal-like periodic structures consisting of colloidal particles in equilibrium with the dilute sol consisting of single particles. Such periodic structures are observed in some biological systems, e.g. in tobacco mosaic virus, in V205 sols and in latexes. 

For the rod-shaped particles of tobacco mosaic virus of length 280 nm at room temperature, for example, rotational diffusion coefficients of 550 s" were found. The rods thus require 0.0018 s in order to return to their equilibrium (randomly oriented) positions. 

---