SMARTREFTM low pressure high speed defrost

Origin:

In 1998, the MAPAQ (Ministry of Agriculture, fisheries and food products of Quebec) determined that refrigerated cases, and consequently refrigeration systems, had to maintain a food product core temperature of 4 degrees Celsius. At that time, no conventional system could meet this requirement. Solutions also had to found to address the humidity problems inside meat packages and frost formation inside and on frozen food packages (shrimp, ice cream containers, etc.)

Advantages:

  • Preservation of product quality, appearance and longer-lasting fresh taste through an approximately 60%
  • reduction in defrost time
  • Elimination of frost formation within and on refrigerated product packages
  • Substantial reduction of labour costs related to the repackaging of food products that have poor appearance due to frost formation
  • Superior results well above the standards established by the government for food preservation
  • Significant energy savings by reducing defrost time. Reduction of equipment wear through the avoidance of returning hot gas to the compressor housing following defrost

Operation:

The SMARTREFTM high speed defrost technology was developed to be adaptable to existing and new systems, accelerating refrigerant circulation during defrost. This was made possible by using a compressor in the defrost process that would dedicate 100% of its load capacity solely to this cycle and through using a secondary receiver in which pressure is greatly lowered to increase the differential between the hot gas defrost feed to a case, and the hot gas return to the defrost receiver.

As a result, the speed of refrigerant circulation during this cycle is increased, which reduces defrost time to under 10 minutes with minimal temperature change in the core refrigerated merchandise of 1 degree Celsius per defrost. With the The SMARTREFTM low pressure high speed defrost, it is possible to simultaneously defrost 100 feet of refrigerated cases (30 metres) or 4 cooler or freezer rooms in well under 10 minutes!