New food freezing concept improves quality, increases safety and cuts energy use:
"A complete change over to this new method of food freezing worldwide could cut energy use by as much as 6.5 billion kilowatt-hours each year while reducing the carbon emissions that go along with generating that power by 4.6 billion kg, the equivalent of removing roughly one million cars from roads," said ARS research food technologist Cristina Bilbao-Sainz. She is with the Healthy Processed Foods Research Unit, part of ARS's Western Regional Research Center (WRRC) in Albany.
"These savings could be achieved without requiring any significant changes in current frozen food manufacturing equipment and infrastructure, if food manufacturers adopt this concept," Bilbao-Sainz added.
The new freezing method, called isochoric freezing, works by storing foods in a sealed, rigid container -- typically made of hard plastic or metal -- completely filled with a liquid such as water. Unlike conventional freezing in which the food is exposed to the air and freezes solid at temperatures below 32 degrees F, isochoric freezing preserves food without turning it to solid ice.
As long as the food stays immersed in the liquid portion, it is protected from ice crystallization, which is the main threat to food quality.
[...] Another benefit of isochoric freezing is that it also kills microbial contaminants during processing.
Journal Reference:
Analysis of global energy savings in the frozen food industry made possible by transitioning from conventional isobaric freezing to isochoric freezing, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews (DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2021.111621)
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Gaaark on Saturday September 04 2021, @11:50PM (27 children)
You freeze the container AROUND the food, not necessarily the food itself???
You put the food into a rigid container filled with water and freeze it?
Not sure exactly from what I've read.....
Someone with more smarts know??
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 05 2021, @12:18AM (5 children)
You're not entirely wrong. I did some reading, and here's what I gleaned:
a) take a pressure vessel
b) fill it with your liquid medium (arguendo, water)
c) put your food into the liquid medium
d) make damn sure there's no air bubble because air will screw with things because of its compressibility
e) close your pressure vessel
f) drop the whole thing to freezing temperatures
g) this doesn't actually freeze all the water in it (Some freezes to ice, some doesn't.)
h) when you open the pressure vessel and remove your goodies, they're less freezer burned
I am very sceptical. I could be convinced, but I have serious questions. I am not sceptical about the physics; that part entirely checks out. The behaviour of water in the temperature/pressure envelope under discussion is quite well understood. The claim that this does less damage to food than conventional freezing, but also kills microorganisms on some notable level makes me suspicious. But that's the least of it.
What makes me really suspicious is the economics. Pressure vessels up to this task are not particularly light (shipping costs!), not particularly easy to get right in terms of a long, active service life, not particularly easy to purge of bubbles without additional steps, and will need to be in some freezing cold context anyway if you're not incorporating your refrigeration system into the vessels (very expensive) and will have to be repurged every time you opened a vessel to pull out some cherry tomatoes (or whatever). Compared to a pack of steak wrapped in butcher's paper, it's a shitshow of a process. To make it justifiable both the process, the cost of construction and distribution of the vessels and the transport of the additional vessels and liquid media would have to overcome the costs of refrigeration. This is ... let's call it a logistical challenge.
If I were to start a food preservation scheme, I would look into pickling solutions (seal and shelf stable!) canning solutions (one major energy input, then shelf stable for decades), desiccation solutions or some combination of the above. While I wouldn't describe this as exactly a solution looking for a problem, it looks as if it doesn't solve problems that I have, while it introduces new problems that I don't want.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by wisnoskij on Sunday September 05 2021, @03:19AM (1 child)
I guess these would be quite large containers? The entire point here seems to be to save energy on not having to do the ice phase change. But their is not a tremendous amount of energy in the ice phase change (at least relative to vapor), so it would be pretty important to only freeze the smallest percentage of ice as possible. Additionally, you are adding mass as you add water, so the water would need to be a tiny percentage of the total mass or cooling it down to liquid 0 would cost more than the phase change savings.
Then not only do we have more mass for transport and special expensive packaging. But it is also less shelf stable as we have put less cold energy into it. And being in the food industry I can say that frozen food is often shipped with inadequate or non existent cooling, with the hope that it a big enough pile of it will stave off melting long enough to get to the destination.
This seems like more of a high end specialty process you might use on the most expensive cuts of meat to ship world wide instead of just regional. People are probably having Kobe beef jetted into their snobby restaurants. With pressurized 0 degree chambers this beef might be put on slow cargo ships at significantly less cost and arrive at the destination months latter.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 05 2021, @04:22PM
Yeah, it would be cheaper, easier, arguably safer to just have a dry ice brick system inside your cool transit system. Sure, there's freezer burn, but we already know about and live with that.
Or, you know, just use less energy-hungry food storage systems.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday September 05 2021, @02:11PM (2 children)
Yeah, the pressure vessels would not be light, plus the water which is heavy, plus the food product itself? TCOS!(Total Cost Of Shipping)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 05 2021, @06:11PM (1 child)
A shock wave could momentarily change the pressure in the liquid (and the stuff to be preserved), so what would happen if say the container was dropped and hit the ground? Or someone smacked it with a trolley/hard object etc.
This suggests it's more stable but would it really be stable enough in practice with the sort of containers they'll be using? https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.5145334 [scitation.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 05 2021, @08:46PM
Assuming that any such shocks would be in tolerance for the container, slightly higher pressure waves might temporarily destabilise some ice that had formed, but in reality it'd be over too soon to have any substantial effect.
Seal breaches would be much more fatal, because all you need is a little, slow seepage to screw the whole system.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 05 2021, @12:24AM (6 children)
Another Green Scam (tm)
Some non-paywalled stuff on the tech: https://peerj.com/articles/3322/ [peerj.com]
The tiny but relevant detail omitted in TFA is that the "sealed, rigid container" has to withstand the pressure of 2.000 atmospheres.
One can reliably expect, on unsealing the container, an unscheduled rapid disassembly of the content and whoever does the unsealing.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 05 2021, @12:35AM (3 children)
Not quite. At -3C (around 26F) the pressure requirement is a relatively mild 300 atmospheres. A few centimetres of appropriately shaped, high grade steel will do the job just fine (assuming no pressure/release fatigue cycle problems to worry about). Also, when you release, while you could get splashy the actual volume alteration is very slight. It's more like a hydraulic cylinder that really, really wants to move that extra tenth of an inch, compared to a pneumatic cylinder that will send its working end flying the moment you release it.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday September 05 2021, @08:44AM (1 child)
But frozen food is not at -3°C (well, technically, at that temperature it is already frozen, but it won't do much for long-time preservation). More like -18°C.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 05 2021, @08:48PM
I suspect that the difference in energy cost between mild freezes and deep is part of the intended savings.
Not that it matters. 300 atmospheres is already a savage pressure to maintain for any length of time. Not to mention pressure cycles affecting vessel lifespan.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 05 2021, @09:58AM
That’s considerably more pressure than a SCUBA tank holds. I suspect that they are underestimating the challenges involved in making a safe, production-ready system to do this.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 05 2021, @11:02AM (1 child)
Found the Trumptard. God, SoylentNews is turning into the cesspool that is Slashdot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 05 2021, @07:10PM
Yeah, basic physics is Another Republican Conspiracy against the honest artsy-educated lefties.
This is what happens when "Science" becomes an idol's name, for ignorant self-ordained priesthood to offer sacrificed heathens to, and do cute virtue-signalling dances around. All the artsy leftie thingys that are so very much easier to do for the artsy leftie types, than wrapping their tiny leftie brains around a single bit of that cold, unforgiving, hard scientific knowledge.
Bon voyage back to barbarism.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by takyon on Sunday September 05 2021, @12:24AM (12 children)
Isochoric Freezing: A New Technology for Food Preservation [ift.org]
Based on this, they use an isotonic solution (e.g. water with a similar concentration of salt and sugar as in the human body, like Gatorade). Maybe no sugar.
They bring the temperature down to the freezing point of the solution. The solution exists in equilibrium at the phase transition point, so some of it is solid and the rest is liquid. The foods stay in the liquid portion, at the bottom I guess. As long as they are in the liquid, they don't get damaged by ice forming.
The metal containers (or lighter carbon fiber composites or hard phenolic thermosets) can be stored in existing commercial freezers, supposedly, which would make it easier and cheaper to implement.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by HammeredGlass on Sunday September 05 2021, @12:25AM (3 children)
Gatorade is isotonic!?
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Sunday September 05 2021, @12:27AM (2 children)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sports_drink#Categories_of_sport_drinks [wikipedia.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 05 2021, @09:56PM (1 child)
So you can put the food into gatorade and freeze the whole thing?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday September 05 2021, @10:36PM
Only if you have the $1 million steel capsule.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Sunday September 05 2021, @01:32AM (1 child)
Sounds like the food is mixed into the isochoric medium? Or is there some membrane keeping the food separate from the liquid?
I also wondered if this was supercooling. No, seems isochoric cooling is not the same as nor uses supercooling.
Another thing that puzzles me is the pressure. Reason for the rigid container is pressurization. Increasing the pressure rapidly raises the boiling point, but it doesn't budge the freezing point until the pressure gets above approximately 90 atmospheres, then the freezing point actually starts down a little. So maybe that's one thing they're doing, pressurizing so that it will stay liquid even as it gets a little below 0 degrees C.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 05 2021, @01:53AM
You have it backwards.
It's pressure rising because of freezing.
Think of all those little H2Os floating around, getting sleepier and sleepier until they want to hook up into a nice ice crystal for the freeze. But there's a problem; their ice crystal formation takes up more space than just liquid slithering over each other. This means that, even as they get colder, the pressure in the vessel rises.
What they're doing is chilling the thing, and they can assess how cold it is in the vessel by the internal pressure. Colder? Higher pressure. What this does is bring it nearer the point where other crystal formations take priority over conventional ice that you or I know in our frozen daiquiris.
The result for the food is that it doesn't freeze (as much) but it's under ferociously high pressure (but because the medium is functionally uniform, it's not crushed). The only real hitch is the high quality pressure vessel that makes a diver's cylinder look like a banker's envelope, or titanium for extra giggles.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 05 2021, @03:20AM (1 child)
One question - cost of transporting to market. Instead of a food item, you now have a heavy duty container filled with heavy liquid around it. Or do they then take to food item OUT and "somehow" keep it stable while shipping? Would have to see this in action to believe it and check its viability.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday September 05 2021, @08:22AM
What about the cost of transporting from market? How much room do you need for 6 or 24 containers? Will it fit into an SUV for the trip home? What do they weigh? Is Soccer Mom Sally going to carry a bunch of these into the house, or will she have to enlist the aid of a strapping young man? At the end of the month, Sally has used the contents of 20, or 50 containers. What's she going to do with all of them? Do they go to the landfill, or are they (easily and cheaply) recyclable?
Like you, I need to see the proof of concept, and the logistics that have to be built around it.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 05 2021, @06:01PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday September 05 2021, @07:56PM
Good for an organ maybe.
NASA is bringing cryosleep chambers out of fiction and into science [syfy.com]
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/NIAC_Torpor_Habitat_for_Human_Stasis.pdf [nasa.gov]
Nap Quest: How Suspended Animation Could Fuel Space Exploration [northropgrumman.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday September 06 2021, @01:14PM (1 child)
So they've invented kimchi?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 10 2021, @02:04PM
Not really.
It wasn't an invention so much as a re-application of an old idea to food - and kimchi isn't frozen.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 05 2021, @01:29AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a01QQZyl-_I [youtube.com]
(Score: 0, Insightful) by HammeredGlass on Sunday September 05 2021, @12:23AM (6 children)
I think about their ultimate goal of shoving us all into high density cities where our every step is watched, counted, and controlled.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday September 05 2021, @12:26AM
Get Starlink and hit the road, Jack.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Acabatag on Sunday September 05 2021, @01:47AM (1 child)
High density housing along mass transit corridors is nearly every urban planner's wet dream. Their arch-nemesis is what they call 'sprawl.'
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by HammeredGlass on Sunday September 05 2021, @02:38PM
I don't want sprawl. I moved to a small town, and into a house that is much older than me, 30 minutes outside the local metropolis on purpose.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday September 05 2021, @01:48AM (2 children)
Who is "they?"
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Some call me Tim on Sunday September 05 2021, @02:28AM
I would guess that "they" are people in government. Those are the folks that want to control every aspect of our lives. "They" are not to be trusted under any circumstances as their goals are not good for us but designed to enrich themselves at our expense.
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Questioning science is how you do science!
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 05 2021, @08:25AM
"They" is you.
(Score: 2) by sonamchauhan on Sunday September 05 2021, @05:51AM (1 child)
Hyperbaric hypothermic [google.com] treatment is a thing.
What about "cryosleep" when floating in a low-temperature, highly-pressured flotation tank?
Or even oxygenated breathing fluid [johnclarkeonline.com], with dissolved oxygen concentrations higher than they could be under normal temperatures?
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Sunday September 05 2021, @10:31PM
I bet Walt Disney would've loved to have been put to sleep in one of these babies rather than being frozen normally like a chump.