  Few compounds feature ice-shaping properties. The only compound reported to
have ice-shaping properties similar to that of ice-shaping proteins,
encountered in many organisms living at low temperature, is Zirconium Acetate.
When a Zirconium Acetate solution is frozen, oriented and perfectly hexagonal
ice crystals can be formed and their growth follows the temperature gradient.
To shed light on the water/ice phase transition while freezing Zirconium
Acetate solution we carried out differential scanning calorimetry measurements.
From our results, we estimate how many water molecules do not freeze because of
their interaction with Zr cations. We estimate the colligative properties of
the Zr concentration on the apparent critical temperature. We further show the
phase transition is unaffected by the nature of the base which is used to
adjust the pH. Our results provide thus new hints on the ice-shaping mechanism
of Zirconium Acetate.
