Abstract This study investigated the effects of precooling conditions on the ice nucleation phenomena of water and semisolid matrices (i.e., gelatin and agar gels). For water, the precooling rate was affected by the ice nucleation temperature, while the difference in the ice nucleation temperature was 0.9 °C even if the precooling rate was changed by 10-fold. For a semisolid matrix, the impact of the precooling rate on the ice nucleation temperature was clearly observed when a constant temperature was applied, whereas this relationship was diminished under stepwise cooling conditions with large temperature intervals (2–8 °C). Linear precooling could be achieved by applying stepwise cooling with a 0.5 °C temperature interval. Ice nucleation could be manually obtained at varying temperatures, and the results indicated that the nucleation temperature affected the phase transition time and the size of the ice crystals for completely frozen gelatin gel. Consequently, this study demonstrated a possible application of precooling conditions in the design of a feasible and novel freezing technique.

中文翻译：

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预冷条件对半固态基体冰成核温度和冻结特性的影响

摘要 本研究调查了预冷条件对水和半固体基质（即明胶和琼脂凝胶）的冰成核现象的影响。对于水，预冷速率受冰核温度的影响，而即使预冷速率改变 10 倍，冰核温度的差异仅为 0.9 °C。对于半固体基体，当施加恒定温度时，可以清楚地观察到预冷速率对冰成核温度的影响，而在大温度间隔（2-8°C）的逐步冷却条件下，这种关系会减弱。通过以 0.5 °C 的温度间隔应用逐步冷却，可以实现线性预冷。可以在不同温度下手动获得冰核，结果表明，成核温度影响完全冷冻明胶凝胶的相变时间和冰晶大小。因此，本研究证明了预冷条件在设计可行且新颖的冷冻技术中的可能应用。