Low temperature storage preserves the quality of foods and extends shelf life. This is achieved by reducing growth rates of microorganisms and slowing chemical and physical reactions.
For example, low temperatures are commonly used for storing human biospecimens and tissue samples. These samples can contain vital research information, such as DNA and RNA.
Cold Storage Automation
Cold storage is a vital part of the food supply chain. It ensures that fresh & frozen food products are delivered safely to consumers. In addition to protecting products from the elements, cold storage also preserves their properties and quality.
To maintain quality and efficiencies in a low temperature storage facility, it’s important to employ automation technology. This can help to streamline operations, reducing energy costs and improving productivity by avoiding the use of manual handling.
Aside from automating the movement of product, kho lanh thuc pham cold storage warehouses can also leverage robotic solutions to build mixed-SKU pallets based on customer orders. This can be particularly useful for ensuring product integrity during the order fulfillment process.
Additionally, a number of factors specific to cold chain operations can impact how companies decide to automate. These include a company’s typical order profile and the level of automation required.
To determine which processes should be automated first, it’s important to compare the average time workers spend on each. This can provide a clear indication of which tasks are most labor intensive, allowing you to prioritize and plan accordingly.
Emergency Lighting
For many low temperature storage facilities, emergency lighting is a critical safety feature. This is because it helps to light the exit path and provides illumination for occupants to leave the building during a power outage.
When it comes to emergency lighting, there are a number of different options available. These range from utility sources, such as a generator, to battery backup equipment.
The choice of batteries used in emergency lighting is based on several factors, including cost, capacity (Ah), and performance degradation over time. Batteries that are designed to last for 4 years or more typically use lithium iron phosphate (LFP) technology.
LFP batteries are more expensive than NiCd batteries, but they can be expected to last longer. Additionally, they can help to avoid the problem of “deep cycling,” which is when a battery discharges too much energy to its rated capacity and damages it.
While this is a concern for any emergency lighting system, it is particularly important in low temperature storage where the environment can cause damage to the battery case and reduce its operating life. The battery must be properly designed and maintained to ensure that it is within the rated temperature range at lower ambient temperatures.
Backup Power
Backing up medical refrigerators and freezers is an important way to safeguard their contents, especially vaccines. It helps keep the refrigerator or freezer operating at a constant temperature even when power is out.
Choosing the right backup power system for a medical fridge depends on several factors. For example, the type of backup power required will depend on the temperature range needed to store the vaccines safely and whether or not the fridge is capable of running on a generator for extended periods.
One of the most common backup power systems used in medical freezers is carbon dioxide (CO2) backup power, which releases compressed gas into the fridge when electricity goes out. This helps the refrigerator maintain its temperature, without releasing any hazardous gases or chemicals that can contaminate the food.
Another type of backup power is a fuel cell. This is a more sophisticated technology that can be customized to meet the requirements of a backup power application without changing the size of the fuel cell or the amount of energy stored in it.
The backup power market offers a good opportunity for fuel cell commercialization, as the power output and recharging time requirements are much lower than in automotive or stationary (primary) power applications. This market also offers a high volume of unit sales that could be sufficient to drive down costs in order to make the fuel cells economical.
