In a recent study, we investigated the phenomenon of QCD phase transitions to deconfined quark matter in the context of binary neutron star mergers. We computed gravitational wave signatures of such a phase transition and explored its thermodynamic consequences. We found that binaries with equations of state supporting a quark phase become more compact and are more susceptible to collapsing to a black hole. We also computed electromagnetic signatures of QCD phase transitions and observed that a merger of binaries producing a remnant with a quark core can be dimmer as compared to exclusively hadronic mergers at early times i.e. from a few days to a few weeks following the merger. On the contrary, at late times, on the order of several months to years, the quark mergers can start to become more luminous.