Figure 4: Ice recrystallization inhibition activity of birch pollen molecules.
From: Boreal pollen contain ice-nucleating as well as ice-binding ‘antifreeze’ polysaccharides
(a) Images of polycrystalline ice films after 0 and 120 min of annealing at −8 °C: pure sucrose solution (control; blue) and sucrose solution containing birch pollen #B molecules (red). (b) Analysis of the experiments from (a) showing the cubic mean ice crystal radius as a function of annealing time (light-shaded circles) and linear fits according to LSW theory (solid lines). (c) Rate constant of ice recrystallization kl0, obtained from LSW analysis, as a function of dilution degree dd of the original stock solution (dd = 1) containing the birch pollen molecules. Large solid circles represent the average of 3–4 individual measurements (small open squares) at each dilution degree (red) and of a control solution containing no pollen molecules (dd = 0; blue). The green line is a sigmoidal fit to the data with an inflection point (green circle) at dd ≈ 0.78.
