Investigation of ice nucleation properties of Pseudomonas syringae bacterium and insoluble low molecular weight substances

Abstract

Control of the water freezing process is considerable in different fields of science and technology: from the artificial snow production to the cryopreservation of biological materials. To date, there is no conventional theory that predicts the influence of various biological and non-biological ice nucleators on the formation of ice and, accordingly, on the freezing point of supercooled water. In this work, we investigated the influence of bacterium Pseudomonas syringae, a biological ice nucleator, and heterodisperse insoluble powders of low molecular weight substances on the process of water freezing. AgCl, ZnO and SnO2 were found to be ice nucleators. This property has not been described previously in the literature. It has also been established that insoluble low molecular weight substances affect both the freezing point of water and the temperature of coexistence of water and ice.