Supercooling and Hydration Properties of Polyalcohols Aqueous Solutions Used as Cryoprotectants

A differential scanning calorimeter was used to study the thermal behaviors of polyalcohols aqueous solutions, such as supercooling degree of heterogeneous nucleating temperature, hydration properties. The experimental results show that the variation of supercooling and hydration behavior does not have obvious rules at the low concentrations. However, the supercooling degree and the content of unfrozen water increased with the solution concentration at the high concentrations. The difference of hydration properties shows the important effects of function groups (methyl groups and hydroxyl groups).