Vitrification



  Vitrification is a process of converting a material into a glass-like supercooling).

When the starting material is solid, vitrification usually involves heating the substances to very high amorphous and crystalline phases.

Examples

When antifreeze proteins, sometimes appended with sugars, as cryoprotectants.

Applications

Ordinary soda-lime glass, used in windows and drinking containers, is created by the addition of quartz crystal, not glass.

Vitrification is a proven technique in the disposal and long-term storage of nuclear waste or other hazardous wastes[2]. Waste is mixed with glass-forming chemicals to form molten glass that then solidifies, immobilizing the waste. The final waste form resembles electrodes to melt soil and wastes where they lay buried. The hardened waste may then be disinterred with less danger of widespread contamination. According to the Pacific Northwest National Labs, "Vitrification locks dangerous materials into a stable glass form that will last for thousands of years."[3]

propylene glycol has been used to reduce ice crystals in ice cream, making it smoother.

For years, Twenty-First Century Medicine announced the vitrification of a rabbit kidney to -135ºC with their proprietary vitrification cocktail. Upon rewarming, the kidney was successfully transplanted into a rabbit, with complete functionality and viability.

In the context of cryonics, especially in preservation of the human brain, vitrification of tissue is thought to be necessary to prevent destruction of the tissue or information encoded in the brain. At present, vitrification techniques have only been applied to brains (neurovitrification) by Alcor and to the upper body by the Cryonics Institute, but research is in progress by both organizations to apply vitrification to the whole body.

References

  1. ^ Jack R. Layne, Jr., Richard E. Lee, Jr. (1995). "Adaptations of frogs to survive freezing". CLIMATE RESEARCH 5: 53-59.
  2. ^ M. I. Ojovan, W.E. Lee. An Introduction to Nuclear Waste Immobilisation, Elsevier, Amsterdam, 315pp. (2005)
  3. ^ Waste Form Release Calculations for the 2005 Integrated Disposal Facility Performance Assessment (PDF). PNNL-15198. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (July, 2005). Retrieved on 2006-11-08.
  4. ^ Plenary Session: Fundamentals of Biopreservation. CRYO 2005 Scientific Program. Society for Cryobiology (Sunday, July 24, 2005). Retrieved on 2006-11-08.
  • Steven Ashle, Divide and Vitrify, June 2002, Scientific American
  • Stefan Lovgren, Corpses Frozen for Future Rebirth by Arizona Company, March 2005, National Geographic
  • Vitrification: Putting the Heat on Waste

See also
 
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Vitrification". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia.