1. Could you explain the significance of your article to the non-specialist? 

Solvent induced liquid crystal properties (lyotropic behaviour) is described for a series of silver-containing mesogens.  The properties observed depend heavily on the solvent used.  Non-polar alkane solvents act like additional terminal chains, while small, polar solvents act to increase the effective volume of the molecular core.  Short-chain alcohols, however, seem to allow the molecules to assemble into ribbon structures through intermolecular hydrogen bonding.  Thus, the liquid crystal behaviour of these silver complexes is a sensitive function of both temperature and solvent.

2. What has motivated you to conduct this work? 

We have interests in both metallomesogens and metallosurfactants and this work enabled us to combine the two

3. Where do you see this work developing in the future? 

In the immediate future, we are extending this to the study of other thermotropic liquid crystal systems, but in the medium term, we believe there is general interest in looking at solvent-driven assembly