Active phase change material package for thermal protection of ice cream containers

Abstract

Temperature sensitive products transportation and storage are global issues because of the new lifestyle of the people. Here, the enhancement of the ice cream storage conditions when it is placed outside the freezer is studied. In commercial applications like in restaurants, the period that the ice cream stays outside the freezer is much higher than for example in households, and therefore the quality of the ice cream decreases. The aim of this paper is to design and to test a phase change material (PCM) package for commercial ice cream containers. A mathematical model was validated with experimental data and following a parametrical study of the design process was done. The experimental results demonstrated that the use of the PCM package is beneficial for ice cream quality when it is placed out of the freezer.

The work is partially funded by the Spanish government (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.