Antifreeze Proteins: Blocking Ice Crystal Growth (2D)

A simplified 2D cross-section of the ice-water interface shows how antifreeze glycoproteins actually work: not by colligative freezing-point depression like ethylene glycol, but by adsorbing onto the growing ice surface and pinning it locally through Kelvin-effect curvature. Pan and zoom the interface, click anywhere along it to bind a protein by hand, and watch the front bulge forward between pinned sites while the live thermal hysteresis readout — the true gap between the melting point and the depressed freezing point — widens as concentration and binding-site density increase.