Coacervation in soft matter: Physicochemical principles and prebiotic implications.
Coacervation is a liquid-liquid phase separation process in which macromolecular, amphiphilic, macroionic, or colloidal components spontaneously demix into a dense coacervate phase and a dilute surrounding phase. In this review, we use the term in a focused physicochemical sense, chiefly for systems in which macromolec...