Methods of using ice-controlling molecules

Abstract

A dispersal pattern of hydrogen bonding sites on an ice surface is used as a template in a process for the design, selection and manufacture of synthetic ice interface dopants. Ice interface dopants are generally molecules which bind to a surface of an ice crystal and inhibit subsequent gain or loss of water molecules. The ice interface dopants can thus inhibit ice crystal growth, recrystallization, and sublimation. Ice interface dopants can also inhibit heterogeneous nucleating agents, and thus postpone or prevent ice nucleation. On the other hand, very strong IIDs may be used as well to beneficially induce ice nucleation. Exemplary dopant structures are provided that achieve near-perfect ice-bonding efficiency while being thoroughly adaptable to a wide variety of specialized ice-bonding applications. Orbital steering provides for steering lone pair orbitals of ice bonding atoms in the interface dopant to result in an optimal angular alignment with the complementary binding sites on ice.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.