The Polymer Society of Korea

Abstract

Ice recrystallization inhibition(IRI) is critical for controlling ice growth in cryopreservation, frozen food preservation, aerospace and automotive industries. Although antifreeze proteins show strong IRI activity, their widespread application is limited by insufficient immunological safety data and difficulties in large-scale production. Synthetic polymers provide an attractive alternative due to their structural tunability and scalability.
Herein, synthetic polymers were prepared via ring-opening metathesis polymerization(ROMP) to investigate the effect of polymer backbone structure on IRI activity. Both polymers possess identical hydrophilic side groups but differ in backbone composition. Despite identical functional groups, the difference in IRI performance highlights the importance of backbone hydrophobicity and hydrophilic–hydrophobic domain organization. These results provide insight into the rational design of scalable, protein-free IRI-active polymers.