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Is it effective to pre-cool close to the freezing point temperature before freezing?

Author(s) : MAEKAWA R., WATANABE M., POUDYAL R. L., SUZUKI T.

Type of article: IJR article

Summary

There are several reports concerning to the pre-cooling close to the freezing point temperature before freezing, but its effectiveness has not been well validated possibly due to the lack of experimental reproducibility and the detailed information about the ice morphology. The purpose of this study was to comprehensively investigate the effect of the pre-cooling on freezing time and ice formation. We introduced improvement of accuracy in temperature measurement, egg albumin gel as food analog to be frozen, one-dimensional heat transfer condition during freezing, numerical simulation of temperature history during freezing and three-dimensional ice crystal observation by X-ray computed tomography. As a result, measured temperature history for the three times freezing experiments overlapped almost perfectly, that indicated current freezing experiment was highly reproducible. Though it was found to be difficult to determine the efficacy from freezing time, ice crystal observation showed that larger and less uniform ice crystals were formed in pre-cooled frozen samples than conventionally frozen samples. Numerical simulation results suggested that such difference in ice morphology was due to the temperature distribution in unfrozen layer of the sample. In case of pre-cooled freezing, since there was almost no temperature distribution in unfrozen layer, ice nucleation could occur at any location in unfrozen layer that led to longer staying time at the temperature zone of maximum ice crystal formation. Based on these results, it was concluded that the pre-cooling before freezing was not at least effective, in current experimental condition.

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Pages: 63-71

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Details

  • Original title: Is it effective to pre-cool close to the freezing point temperature before freezing?
  • Record ID : 30029213
  • Languages: English
  • Subject: Technology
  • Source: International Journal of Refrigeration - Revue Internationale du Froid - vol. 132
  • Publication date: 2021/12
  • DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijrefrig.2021.09.023
  • Document available for consultation in the library of the IIR headquarters only.

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