Nuts and Bolts of Vitrification
Learn more about vitrification in the cryonics industry at Depressed Metabolism: "A major public misperception is that cryonics involves the freezing of dead people. The objective of cryonics is not to preserve dead people with the hope of future revival but to place critically ill patients in a state of biostasis until a time when more advanced medical technologies might be available to treat and cure them. Currently, all major cryonics organizations induce metabolic arrest of the brain by attempting vitrification rather than freezing. Unless a patient has suffered a long period of circulatory arrest, after which perfusion of the body or brain is no longer possible, metabolic arrest is induced by cooling down the patient to cryogenic temperatures. Vitrification can be defined as 'the process of converting a material into a glass-like amorphous solid that is free from any crystalline structure.' Because vitrification of pure water would require extremely rapid cooling rates, vitrification in cryonics is achieved by substituting the water of patients with a highly concentrated cryoprotectant agent before cooling."
Link: http://depressedmetabolism.com/2008/03/31/vitrification-agents-in-cryonics-vm-1/