This story was originally published by
Hakai Magazine
.
Japan’s scorching summers are made more enjoyable with a frozen orange treat. While it’s satisfying to make it at home, it becomes even more delightful when prepared 850 meters beneath the ocean’s surface. Shinsuke Kawagucci, a deep-sea geochemist at the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, describes the frozen orange as “a bit salty, but super delicious.”
The creation of this frozen fruit was the result of a groundbreaking scientific experiment. In 2020, Kawagucci and his team engineered an extraordinary freezer designed to function under the intense pressure of the deep sea. The successful freezing of the orange in the depths of Japan’s Sagami Bay demonstrated the feasibility of such an innovation.
The prototype deep-sea freezer consists of a pressure-resistant tube with an embedded thermoelectric cooling device. By utilizing the Peltier effect, where an electric current generates a temperature difference in semiconductors, the device can cool its contents to -13 degrees Celsius, well below the freezing point of seawater. Since it doesn’t require liquid nitrogen or refrigerants, it can be built compactly with minimal engineering expertise.
According to a recent paper by Kawagucci and his colleagues, with a few adjustments, their prototype freezer could serve a greater purpose beyond being a novelty snack machine. It could significantly enhance scientists’ ability to study deep-sea life by providing a means to freeze samples at depth.
The process of bringing deep-sea animals to the surface often causes irreparable damage. The smooth-head blobfish, for instance, takes on a misshapen and sad appearance when forcibly extracted from its home over 1,000 meters below. Scientists have previously developed tools to maintain the cold temperature of specimens during ascent, but the prototype freezer is the first device capable of freezing specimens in the deep sea. Other tools exist to collect deep-sea creatures unharmed, like pressurized chambers, but they are not suitable for small and delicate organisms that decompose quickly in such containers. Luiz Rocha, the curator of ichthyology at the California Academy of Sciences, explains that samples can take hours to reach the surface.
Freezing samples prior to ascent would prevent degradation and enable more comprehensive scientific analysis, including DNA examination. Although freezing may damage tissues, samples affected by freezing are generally more valuable to scientists than decomposed ones.
The current freezing time of the prototype freezer, which exceeds an hour, may limit its usefulness. Steve Haddock, a marine biologist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, explains that every minute in deep-sea exploration is valuable, and they typically transport animals to the surface in excellent condition using insulated chambers. However, if the freezing time can be improved, Haddock believes that such a device could be “empowering” for researchers studying deep-sea organisms sensitive to pressure and temperature changes, like microbes in hydrothermal vents.
Kawagucci and his team intend to enhance their freezer before subjecting it to live specimen testing. They hope that with these improvements, scientists will have the means to collect even the most delicate deep-sea organisms.
For now, Kawagucci is ecstatic that his device has demonstrated the possibility of deep-sea freezing using a thermoelectric cooler. He shares his excitement about being the first person to witness ice generated in the deep sea using his freezer. When he finally savored the tangy, salty, and sweet frozen orange, he realized that “one of his dreams came true.”
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