Refrigeration is a key component of any commercial and industrial application, ensuring food is stored safely. Cold rooms are an ideal complement or replacement for refrigeration equipment, able to accommodate large quantities of food and ingredients while remaining energy efficient.
Cold room is an important part of the refrigeration, FlyCheng will introduce you the details of cold room.
1. What Is Cold Room?
Cold room is a building that uses artificial refrigeration to make a fixed space reach a specified temperature for storing items.
Cold room originated from ice luxury and is mainly used for constant temperature storage of food, dairy products, meat, aquatic products, green plants, tea, fruits and vegetables, cold drinks, flowers, medicines, chemical raw materials, electronic instruments, etc. There are also many types of cold storage.
2. What Are the Types of Clod Room?
Cold room can be classified in many ways according to different standards. There are many different classification standards for cold storage, such as temperature, building structure, purpose, volume, type of refrigerant, evaporator type, storage characteristics, storage content and building materials, etc.
3. Classifications of Cold Room by Temperature
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High Temperature Cold Room
L level +5℃–5℃, mainly used for storing fruits and vegetables, eggs, medicinal materials, wood preservation, drying, etc. Also known as cooling storage, the storage temperature is generally controlled at not lower than the freezing temperature of food juice. The temperature of the cooling storage or cooling room is usually around 0°C, and the air cooler is used for blowing cooling;
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Medium Temperature Cold Room
D level -10℃–18℃, mainly used to store meat, aquatic products and products suitable for this temperature range;
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Low Temperature Cold Room
J level -23℃–28℃. Also known as freezing storage, frozen cold room, the general storage temperature is around -20°C~-30°C, and the freezing of food is achieved through air coolers or special freezing devices;
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Ultra-low Temperature Cold Room
≤-30℃, mainly used for quick freezing of food and special purposes such as industrial testing and medical treatment;
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Refrigerated Temperature Cold Room
It stores cooled and frozen foods at different temperatures in cold storage rooms and freezing rooms at different temperatures for short or long periods of time. Usually, the cold storage room for cooled foods maintains a temperature of 4°C~2°C, and is mainly used to store fruits, vegetables, milk, eggs and other foods; the cold storage room for frozen foods maintains a temperature of -18°C~-25°C, and is used to store meat, fish and poultry, etc.
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Quick-freezing Cold Room
Also called tunnel cold room, quick-freezing tunnel cold room. Used for rapid freezing of food.
4. Classifications of Cold Room by Structural Form
According to the building structure, cold room can be divided into civil cold room, prefabricated cold room, jacketed cold room and gas-controlled cold room. The characteristics of various cold rooms are as follows.
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Civil Cold Room
The main structure and underground load-bearing structure are made of reinforced concrete, and the walls of the enclosure structure are made of bricks. They are strong, have good thermal insulation, low cost, and long construction period.
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Prefabricated Cold Room
The main structure is made of light steel structure, and the enclosure structure is assembled with prefabricated polyurethane or polystyrene core panels.
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Jacketed Cold Room
An inner jacket structure is added to the enclosure structure of the conventional cold room, and cooling equipment is installed in the jacket, and cold air circulates in the jacket for refrigeration.
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Atmosphere Controlled Cold Room
It is mainly used for long-term storage of fresh fruits and vegetables, crop seeds and flowers. In addition to controlling the temperature and humidity in the storage, it is also necessary to control the O₂, CO₂, N, and ethylene content in the storage to inhibit the respiration of fruits and vegetables.
5. Classifications of Cold Room by the Usage
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Production Cold Room
They are mainly built near food production areas, areas with concentrated sources of goods and fishery bases. They are usually an important part of fish processing plants, domestic animal processing plants, poultry and egg processing plants, vegetable processing plants, and various food processing plants. This kind of cold storage is equipped with corresponding slaughtering workshops, fish processing rooms, and sorting rooms. It has large cooling and freezing capabilities and a certain refrigeration capacity. After cold processing, the food is transported to the sales area after short-term storage, directly exported or transported to the distribution cold storage for long-term storage.
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Distribution Cold Room
They are mainly built in large and medium-sized cities, industrial and mining areas with large populations, and water and land transportation hubs. They are specially used to store cold-processed food for regulating the peak and off-peak seasons, providing foreign trade exports, and long-term reserves. Its characteristics are large refrigeration capacity and considering the storage of multiple varieties of food. Its freezing capacity is small. It is only used to open long distances to transfer frozen food to refreeze the softened part during transportation and freeze small batches of local fresh food.
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Retail Cold Room
This type of cold storage is generally built in industrial and mining enterprises or large urban non-staple food stores and vegetable markets for temporary storage of retail food. Its characteristics are small storage capacity and short storage period, and its storage temperature varies with different usage requirements. In terms of storage structure, most of them use assembled combined cold storage.
6. Classifications of Cold Room by the Size
At present, the cold storage capacity is not unified, and is generally divided into large, medium and small cold storage
1. The refrigeration capacity of large cold storage is above 10,000t; the freezing capacity of production cold storage is within the range of 120~160t/d, and the freezing capacity of distribution cold storage is within the range of 40~80t/d.
2. Medium-sized cold storage: The refrigeration capacity of this type of cold storage is within the range of 10,000~1000t, the freezing capacity of production cold storage is within the range of 40~120t/d, and the freezing capacity of distribution cold storage is within the range of 20~60t/d.
3. Small cold storage (small cold storage): The freezing capacity of this type of cold storage is below 1000t, the freezing capacity of production cold storage is within the range of 20~40t/d, and the freezing capacity of distribution cold storage is within the range of 20t/d.
7. Classifications of Cold Room by the Refrigerant
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Ammonia Cold Room
This type of cold storage refrigeration system uses ammonia as the refrigerant.
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Freon Cold Room
This type of cold storage refrigeration system uses Freon as the refrigerant.
8. Classifications of Cold Room by the Evaporator
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Air Cold Room
The cold storage uses air coolers as evaporators
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Drain Cold Room
The cold storage uses drain pipes as evaporators
9. Classifications of Cold Room Storage Characteristics
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Supermarket Cold Room
a small cold storage used by supermarkets to store retail food.
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Constant Cold Room
a cold storage with precise requirements for the temperature and humidity of stored items. Including constant temperature and humidity cold storage.
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Controlled Cold Room
The controlled atmosphere fresh-keeping cold storage is currently the most advanced fruit and vegetable fresh-keeping cold storage at home and abroad. It can not only adjust the temperature and humidity in the warehouse, but also control the content of gases such as oxygen and carbon dioxide in the warehouse, so that the fruits and vegetables in the warehouse are in a dormant state, and they still maintain their original quality after leaving the warehouse.
10. Classifications of Cold Room Storage Items
Medical cold storage, food cold room, fruit cold storage, vegetable cold storage, tea cold storage, etc.
11. Classifications of Cold Room Materials
High-end cold storage, low-end cold room, fiberglass cold storage, color steel cold storage, stainless steel cold storage
12. In Conclusion
As a constant temperature storage refrigeration equipment, cold room is very common in industrial and commercial activities. I hope this article can help you have a basic understanding of the classification of cold storage. If you want to consult more relevant information, you can contact our sales colleagues or send your needs to the mailbox.