Twin-plate Ice Nucleation Assay (TINA) with infrared detection for high-throughput droplet freezing experiments with biological ice nuclei in laboratory and field samples

摘要

For efficient analysis and characterization of biological ice nuclei under immersion freezing conditions, we developed the Twin-plate Ice Nucleation Assay (TINA) for high-throughput droplet freezing experiments, in which the temperature profile and freezing of each droplet is tracked by an infrared detector. In the fully automated setup, a couple of independently cooled aluminum blocks carrying two 96-well plates and two 384-well plates, respectively, are available to study ice nucleation and freezing events simultaneously in hundreds of microliter-range droplets (0.1-40 mu L). A cooling system with two refrigerant circulation loops is used for high-precision temperature control (uncertainty 0.2 K), enabling measurements over a wide range of temperatures (similar to 272-233 K) at variable cooling rates (up to 10 K min(-1)).