Refrigeration consumes about 17% of the world's energy, is costly, and often depends on gases that damage the atmosphere. In rural areas without electricity, this means that vaccines, laboratory tests, and medicines can be lost.
In 2019, a team from the University of the Andes—Juan Angulo, Laura Calderón, Paola Camacho, and Isabel Pulido—studied the bacterium Pseudomonas syringae, which produces a protein capable of raising the temperature at which water freezes. This allowed them to freeze water at 4°C, reducing the energy needed to produce ice.
The project, called PseudoFreeze, began with a refrigerator to transport vaccines to regions such as La Guajira, Chocó, and the Amazon and was presented at the Biodesign Challenge. That project is the origin of NanoFreeze.
