A novel container refrigeration system based on TBAB hydrate cold storage material.

As global economic expands, refrigerated containers have become indispensable tool. Conventional refrigeration technologies suffer from high energy consumption, high cost and unstable performance. This study proposes a novel refrigeration system based on TBAB hydrate cold storage material, thereby eliminating fuel consumption during transportation and mitigating carbon dioxide emissions. The system is designed for applications in precooling in cold chain transportation, container refrigeration, emergency field hospitals refrigeration, and mobile container housing refrigeration. The refrigeration unit leverages off-peak electricity for cold storage within 4 hours; during peak electricity hours, the cold storage tank provides cooling to the container, thus improving economic efficiency. The temperature distribution inside container and cold storage tank is analyzed, as is the temperature and flow rate of the refrigerant carrier in the inlet and outlet pipelines. During testing, an internal heat source is employed to simulate heat load, with the cooling tests extending for more than 9 hours. Additionally, the cold discharge performance of different cold storage materials is evaluated. Results demonstrated that the TBAB hydrate can form at 6◦C, with a stable cold discharge rate of 67.07 kJ⋅min^{− 1} . The spatial cold energy density reached 29.04 kWh/m³ , which is 1.47 times that of water-based cold storage and 26.44% higher than that of ice-based cold storage. Future research should focus on optimizing the performance of hydrate materials (e.g., phase change enthalpy and a broader phase change temperature range), developing intelligent temperature control systems, and verifying scalability to promote the development of a sustainable, low-cost, low-carbon refrigerated container industry.