Emerging Refrigeration Technologies at Laboratory Scale To

Emerging Refrigeration Technologies at Laboratory Scale To Improve Food Quality And
Reduce Environmental Impact And Energy Consumption
Judith Evansa, Tim Browna, Denis Leducqb, Graciela Alvarezbb, Pieter Verbovenc, Bart Nicolaïc,
Annemie Geeraerdc, Edo Wessinkd, Ingrid Claussene, Erlend Indergårde, José Maria Lagarónf,h, Rocio
Pérez Masiáf,h, Stephane Moussetg, Alper Soysale, Marie-Christine Zelemj and Neil Wilsonk.
a
LSBU, Langford, UK ([email protected])
CEMAGREF, Antony, France ([email protected])
c
BIOSYST-MeBioS, K.U.Leuven, Leuven, Belgium ([email protected])
d
TNO, Apeldoorn, The Netherlands ([email protected])
e
SINTEF Energy Research, Trondheim, Norway ([email protected])
f
CSIC, Burjassot, Spain ([email protected])
g
Costan S.p.A, Limana, Italy ([email protected])
h
NanoBioMatters, Burjassot, Spain ([email protected])
e
Arcelik, Istanbul, Turkey ([email protected])
j
CNRS, Toulouse, France ([email protected])
k
Camfridge, Cambridge, UK ([email protected])
b
INTRODUCTION
The Frisbee project (Food Refrigeration Innovations for Safety, consumers’ Benefit, Environmental
impact and Energy optimisation along the cold chain in Europe) will develop new tools and technologies
for use throughout the food cold chain. In work package 5 the Frisbee team will develop new and
emerging refrigeration technologies for representative cold chains selected for application in the
European food industry.
TECHNOLOGIES BEING CONSIDERED
There are a huge number of technologies that are being developed that may have applicability in the
refrigeration of foods. An evaluation of the available technologies that had applicability in the next 5-7
years resulted in the technologies listed in Table 1 being selected for development. Most of the
technologies are more suited to a certain sector of the cold chain and will be applied to the selected food
types being considered within the project (pork, salmon, apples, spinach or ice cream).
Sector
Food
based
Process
based
Table 1. Technologies being investigated in work package 5.
Technology
Sector of cold chain
Food
Superchilling
Primary chilling
Pork
Supercooling
Primary chilling
Pork
Smart packaging
Retail/domestic
All
Magnetic refrigeration
Domestic
All
Air cycle refrigeration
Blast freezing
Pork, salmon, spinach,
ice cream
Nanoparticle refrigeration
All
Non specific
VIPs (Vacuum Insulated Panels)
All
Non specific
A short overview of each technology is contained below.
Superchilling and supercooling
Superchilling and supercooling have great potential to enable safe, high quality and long term storage of
foods without the consumer perceived detrimental effects of freezing. Superchilling allows 10-15% of the
free water in a product to be frozen whereas supercoooling enables all water to remain unfrozen. These
technologies are being considered by LSBU and SINTEF and will be combined with perfusion chilling
for meat where the additional benefits of rapid cooling, low weight loss and novel products are envisaged.
Smart packaging and VIPs
Work package 5 will develop 2 novel packaging technologies. LSBU will investigate VIPs for enhanced
thermal insulation for refrigeration systems and CSIC, Nanobiomatters and Cemagref will work on
nanoencapsulated PCMs (phase change materials) for food packaging.
VIPs have conductivities 5 times less than standard polyurethane insulation. However, their application
needs skill and the costs of panels still restricts uptake. Within work package 5 LSBU will develop
models and investigate reducing manufacturing costs. The work to develop PCMs within food packaging
will use composite nano-structured PCMs incorporated into packaging to provide thermal storage
capacity and to prevent unwanted temperature abuse of perishable food.
Magnetic refrigeration
Magnetic refrigeration exploits the magnetocaloric effect (the temperature change observed when certain
materials are exposed to a rapidly changing magnetic field) found in for example
gadolinium, lanthanum or manganese alloys. The real challenge in magnetic refrigeration is to increase
the temperature span of the refrigeration cycle. A key innovation has been the creation of a regenerative
cooling cycle, which extends the span of a magnetic refrigerator. In work package 5, Camfridge are
developing magnetic refrigeration for domestic and commercial refrigerators with the help of Arcelik and
Costan.
Air cycle refrigeration
LSBU are working to develop air cycle refrigeration for rapid freezing applications. Using air as the
working refrigerant has considerable potential or low temperature freezing applications. Air is a benign
working fluid and does not harm the environment or has the safety implications that are associated with
other refrigerants. There is considerable potential to develop air cycle systems based on optimised and
balanced components that would be suitable for demonstration in the food industry. The main areas
investigated will be fast freezing potentially combined with heating of hot water or food cooking.
Nanoparticle refrigeration optimisation
Within the project Cemagref will work on developing nanofluids for refrigeration system optimisation.
Nanofluids are engineered colloidal suspensions of nanoparticles (1-100 nm) in a base fluid that are used
to enhance heat transfer in conventional refrigeration. Large increases in heat transfer coefficients have
been observed by using only a low concentration of highly conductivity particles (carbon nanotubes).
CONCLUSIONS
Technologies within work package 5 will be used together with technologies from earlier work packages
as part of the demonstration and dissemination activities where optimised cold chains for pork, salmon,
apples, spinach and ice cream will be promoted.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: The research leading to these results has received funding from the
European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement n°
245288.