Polyvinyl alcohol as an effective additives for ice-slurry cold storage systems

In thermal-energy-storage systems that use ice slurry as the working fluid, the shape and size of the crystals must be optimized during the ice creation process. Therefore, methods for preventing ice from recrystallizing during long-term storage and long-distance transport should be developed. Here, for use in ice-slurry systems, we studied polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as the potential additives and compared their capability to inhibit recrystallization and to inhibit ice crystal growth with that of ion-exchanged water and antifreeze proteins (AFPs). The inhibition of ice crystal growth was determined by optical microscopy, the inhibition of recrystallization by the splat cooling method, and the adsorption of PVA onto ice surfaces by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). The results showed PVA are relatively effective in inhibiting recrystallization, thus making it a potential additive in ice-slurry cold-storage systems.