In our previous work we were able
to prove that gelled bicontinuous
microemulsions are a novel type of orthogonal self-assembled system.
The study at hand aims at complementing our previous work by answering
the question of whether gelled lyotropic liquid crystals are also
orthogonal self-assembled systems. For this purpose we studied the
same system, namely, water–<i>n</i>-decane/12-hydroxyoctadecanoic
acid (12-HOA)–<i>n</i>-decyl tetraoxyethylene
glycol ether (C<sub>10</sub>E<sub>4</sub>). The phase boundaries of
the nongelled and the gelled lyotropic liquid crystals were determined
visually and with <sup>2</sup>H NMR spectroscopy. Oscillating shear
measurements revealed that the absolute values of the storage and
loss moduli of the gelled liquid crystalline (LC) phases do not differ
very much from those of the binary organogel. While both the phase
behavior and the rheological properties of the LC phases support the
hypothesis that gelled lyotropic liquid crystals are orthogonal self-assembled
systems, freeze–fracture electron microscopy (FFEM) seems to
indicate an influence of the gel network on the structure of the L<sub>α</sub> phase and vice versa
