Ice Recrystallisation inhibiting Polymer Nano-Objects via Saline-Tolerant Polymerisation-Induced Self-Assembly

Polymerisation-induced self-assembly (PISA), a scalable and versatile method to obtain soft nano-objects is utilised for the first time to introduce ice recrystallisation inhibiting (IRI) polymer nanomaterials. Crucially we developed a method to ensure the particles are saline stable which is essential for IRI testing but current PISA formulations cannot tolerate any salt. Uniquely, we achieved this by tuning the core, enabling us to retain our IRI active corona (based on poly(vinyl alcohol)). The resulting particles showed remarkable activity, inhibiting all ice growth below 1 mg.mL^-1. These results are significant as they show that Nature’s approach to hyperactivity, based upon aggregation/self-assembly, can be mimicked using polymer self-assembly.