This analysis highlights the importance of knowing the different aspects that lead to the necessary implementation of the cold chain in the industries that require it.
by Camilo Botero*
On the occasion of the RefriAméricas Congress that will be held in Medellín on June 13 and 14, ACR LATINOAMÉRICA asked me to write in my usual air conditioning column something related to refrigeration, a topic in which I am not a specialist, even though I have done one or another project in this field, especially in that space a little neglected such as conservations or industrial applications in temperatures below 15 ° C and above 5°C, which does not fall within the range of air conditioning or refrigeration itself.
It seemed to me that talking about the cold chain from the perspective of the user, who are all humans (also some animals), could be of interest on this occasion, but without losing sight of the technological aspects, as is de rigueur in our professional practice.
The cold chain could be defined as a supply chain, with controlled temperature, relative humidity and hygiene, which must be maintained from the beginning of the process until the consumption of the products that require it, it must also have the possibility of registering and verifying the previous data, that is, having traceability.
The cold chain must also be a constant in perishable food products (and also some non-perishable), vaccines, live organs, seeds, distribution of chemicals etc. In the particular case of food, the most harmful microorganisms stop their activity around -7 ° C, so the long-term preservation of perishables is done in systems in which these products are frozen.
The cold chain, as is well known, includes aspects related to the transport of products, followed by their storage in conditions according to their organoleptic properties of the different products, as perceived by the senses: taste, texture, smell, color and that can distinguish a fresh food from a decomposed one; and finally its distribution with the final presentation for the customer as we see it in the village market or in the most sophisticated delicatessen, passing through the large surfaces that exhibit huge quantities of products in all types of packaging and temperatures.
It influences the above, and in a very significant way, the climate: temperature and humidity, level of pollution of the environment and solar radiation, in addition to the infrastructure of roads and transport, the awareness of the consumer regarding the demand of the cold chain, the academic preparation of the farmer, the fisherman, the ranchers, the asepsis of slaughterhouses and of all persons handling or involved in the procurement, transport, storage and distribution of products in general.
It is essential that in this important issue of the cold chain the virtuous circle that we are promoting for air conditioning is also fulfilled: Training + Standardization + Certification, that is, the personnel must be competent and certified taking advantage of regulations judiciously developed, primarily by the relevant guilds and endorsed by the government, in order to constitute regulations or codes of mandatory compliance to ensure that the chain of cold is strictly complied with.
As a child, in the coffee zone of Colombia, where I come from, I had the opportunity to live in towns and farms where having an "oil" refrigerator, as they were called, was a luxury. Everything else was consumed fresh or smoked and /or salted, but I have also had the great fortune of attending specialized refrigeration fairs such as the IKK and the Chillventa in Nuremberg Germany, where you can appreciate the great development that this industry has had in recent years. The use of ecological refrigerants such as ammonia and CO2 make it go in line with the care of the environment.
During the XII CIAR organized by ACAIRE, which will be held in Cartagena de Indias from July 22 to 24, refrigeration has been selected as one of its thematic axes and there specialists from several countries, will give lectures on the state of the art, referring to the cold chain and the like, including the latest technologies available to guarantee the conservation and good presentation of the products that require it.
Finally, it is very important to know in depth the heat transfer mechanisms by which a product is cooled, frozen, thawed and heated, especially if its mass is considerable as a rear quarter of beef.
Here if the whole theory of such heat transfer plays a very important role with its associated mathematics and some amateur can delight in calculating the temperature distributions inside the product, in 3 coordinates and in a transient state, in addition to the reactions of the decomposition of the product.
I close this brief and perhaps disjointed writing by calling for each and every one of us to understand the fundamentals and importance of the cold chain, verify its compliance and demand that it be so.
* Camilo Botero is the current Secretary of the Federation of Ibero-American Associations of Air Conditioning and Refrigeration - FAIAR; he was president of ACAIRE and is president of Camilo Botero Ingenieros Consultores Ltda. He has worked as a teacher in several Colombian universities, guilds and currently in ACAIRE in diploma courses of air conditioning projects, energy efficiency in air conditioning and refrigeration, cogeneration and trigeneration, applied psychometrics, thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, heat transfer and turbomachinery. ([email protected]).
