Viscosity of cryoprotective agents near glass transition: a new device, technique, and data on DMSO, DP6, and VS55

The low strain-rate viscosity of glass-forming cryoprotective agents (CPAs) in the vicinity of the glass transition is studied experimentally. Data on the mechanical behavior in this regime is necessary to the long-term goal of developing planning tools for cryopreservation via vitrification (vitreous means glassy in Latin); such tools will provide guidelines for reducing thermal stress with its devastating effects. While the flow behavior of some glass-forming CPAs is well documented in the literature for the upper part of the cryogenic temperature range (where the CPA has a comparatively low viscosity), it is the flow behavior near the glass transition temperature (where the CPA behaves as nearly a solid with an extremely high viscosity) which is critical to the analysis of stress that develops in the cryopreserved material. If the elevated viscosity limits the material's ability to flow-in order to accommodate the thermal strain resulting from large temperature gradients, especially at the high cooling rates necessary to form glass-structural damage may follow. Information on the behavior of the CPA in the lower part of the cryogenic temperature range is largely unavailable. A new measurement device is presented in this study, in which a solid rod is pulled from a long narrow cup containing a CPA, producing an essentially one-dimensional and isothermal field of flow. The viscosity and relaxation time of the CPA is inferred from measurements of the resulting load on the rod when extracted at a constant velocity. The current study reports on experimental data near glass transition of 7.05M DMSO, a reference CPA solution, and the CPA cocktails VS55 and DP6.