Pedro Alves da Rocha- Filho, featured ILCC liquid crystal artist, August 2009


Photomicrography (taken using a polarising microscope with 20x objective) of a hexagonal liquid cristalline phase of a cosmetic product obtained from Amazonian vegetable oil and a blend of natural and synthetic phosphoric ester. The composition is based on a quaternary phase diagram, here 10.0% p/p andirona oil, 17.5% p/p soy lecithin, 52.5% p/p synthetic phosphoric ester and 20.0% p/p distilled water. This picture was made by Marcio Ferrari, PhD student from my staff.
Jury comment: a very colorful liquid crystal 'flower', unusual for lyotropic textures which due to the low birefringence of typical amphiphiles are often mainly greyscale.
Pedro Alves da Rocha- Filho is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Ribeirão Preto at University of São Paulo (Brazil). His research is mainly focused around Cosmetic Technology concerning Dispersed Systems including emulsions containing liquid crystals, multiple emulsions and nanoemulsions. The raw materials are mainly vegetable oils from Brazilian biodiversity. He received his PhD from the University of São Paulo and he had studied at Université de Paris XI- Paris (France) and Faculté de Pharmacie de Montpellier (France). His research is supported by Conselho Nacional de Pesquisas- CNPq , Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Ensino Superior- CAPES e Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa de São Paulo- FAPESP (Brazil).