Measurement of Ice-Binding Protein Activity in Highly Alkaline Environments

Ice-binding proteins (IBPs) exhibit a disruptive potential to prevent ice growth in highly alkaline solutions and related applications. IBPs, like most proteins, are sensitive to changes in their physical environment, which can alter their physical and chemical properties and ice-binding activities. Here we describe how to investigate IBP integrity for applications in alkaline environments and discuss incorporating IBPs into portland cement paste, an alkaline ceramic, to assess the reduction of ice content and mitigation of freeze-thaw damage to the brittle cementitious matrix.