Design of a CO2 plate freezer test facility with -50°C evaporation temperature

DOI: 10.18462/iir.compr.2024.0640

Sekcia: Compressors and refrigerants

Stav prijatia: Nebol spracovaný

Autori

Abstrakt

Food waste presents a global challenge to food security and sustainability, with an estimated 1.3 billion tons of food lost annually. This waste also leads to substantial emissions and energy consumption. Efficient cooling and freezing systems using natural refrigerants are a sustainable solution for food loss and waste reduction in the food supply chain, especially for the prevention of the loss of raw materials. Plate freezers are typical components in modern automated production and processing facilities for the freezing of processed foodstuffs. NTNU implements a real-sized industrial plate freezer into a dedicated CO2 refrigeration system in the laboratory infrastructure. Due to CO2 liquid circulation inside the plates, the unit can provide more than 100 kW of cooling capacity at evaporation temperatures between -30 and -50°C. The objective of this study was to design the test facility for the proposed plate freezer and numerically investigate the freezing performance. With an additional subcooler and separator, the freezing capacity could be increased up to approximately 3.4 times compared to the system without these components.

Kľúčové slová

Refrigeration, Carbon Dioxide, Plate freezing, Freezing time, Energy Efficiency.