Performance evaluation of a new ice preservation system for supermarkets

Abstract

At present, all types of large–medium-sized supermarkets with aquatic products adopt ice preservation to ensure freshness. The traditional method of ice preservation needs to make a large amount of thick ice and thus wastes manpower and freshwater. A new ice preservation system with cold storage (IP&CS) is designed, and its performance is tested. The use of a cold storage tank to replace the thick ice laid achieves a repeated cold storage and discharge. This experiment uses NaCl solution as the cold storage phase change material (PCM). The phase change temperature of the cold storage PCM and the optimum temperature of the secondary refrigerant during the cold storage process are determined. Results show that the center temperature of aquatic products, water loss rate, color of aquatic products, power consumption, and electricity cost of the IP&CS system are better than those of the traditional ice preservation system.