Thermal analysis of a low temperature storage unit using phase change materials without refrigeration system

Abstract

Frozen food transportation and storage at low temperature is becoming an important issue worldwide as it is related to lifestyle and growing population. The issue of improving the cold chain applies to different applications such as low temperature storage and food transportation. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the thermal response of low temperature chambers incorporating phase change materials (PCM) having low freezing temperature when subjected to refrigeration system failure. This is to simulate food transportation in non-refrigerated trucks or vans. Two commercial PCMs with different melting temperature were tested (Climsel C-18 from CLIMATOR and E-21 from CRISTOPIA). The results show that when there is no refrigeration, both the air and the frozen product temperatures remained at lower values for much longer time when PCM was employed.

The work is partially funded by the Spanish government (ENE2008-06687-C02-01/CON and ENE2011-22722). The authors would like to thank the Catalan Government for the quality accreditation given to their research group GREA (2009 SGR 534). Eduard Oró would like to thank University of Lleida for his research fellowship.