Cold room
A cold room is a room that is electrically , gas-powered, or even naturally cooled. The purpose of a cold room is usually to slow down chemical reactions that take place in perishable food (see also deep freezing ).
Differences from refrigerators
In principle, cold rooms fulfill the same function as refrigerators and are operated between temperatures of 10 to 2 ° C : They cool a certain room. However, a cold room has some significant differences from a refrigerator:
- Refrigerators can be moved anywhere, while a cold room is part of a property (apart from the cold rooms in ships and submarines).
- Most of the time, refrigerators are operated electrically in order to extend the installation to many places. In the case of cold rooms, however, a separate cooling system must be installed.
- For reasons of mobility, refrigerators cannot have as thick a jacket and thermal insulation as cold rooms.
Advantages of a cold room
- The massive casing of a cold room with masonry or reinforced concrete can be supplemented with thick and very effective thermal insulation, which greatly reduces the energy consumption of the cold room compared to a refrigerator.
- The possibility of taking up a lot of space enables the construction of a particularly effective cooling system, which also helps to save energy.
- Cold rooms can be large static structures in which very large and heavy loads can be stored.
Areas of application
- food
- Food production, e.g. B. Slaughterhouses or harvest storage
- Food preparation in restaurants, hotels, ships, large kitchens, residential buildings, e.g. B. Beverage cooling room , refrigerated ship (cargo ship)
- medicine
- Autopsy : Corpses that are being medically examined are stored in cold rooms to slow down the decomposition.
- Refuge from outside heat: In regions with temporarily very high outside temperatures (e.g. subtropics), older people are often overburdened with the midday heat, as their body is often unable to keep its body temperature low enough. It is therefore medically sensible and helpful to install cold rooms in old people's homes in which people can protect themselves from the strong midday sun.
- mechanical engineering
- Assembly of press-fit components . The cooling of fitting parts (e.g. fitting shafts or feather keys) that have been manufactured with oversize makes assembly very easy and is sometimes not possible otherwise. In a statically specially aligned cold room, it is possible to store very large fitting parts (weighing several hundred kilograms) for cooling.
Naturally cooled cold rooms
Cold rooms are naturally cooled in warm or hot, dry areas without electricity or gas. In Namibia, for example, these rooms are called cold rooms or just coolers .
“The air here is very dry, water evaporates quickly. You can tell by the laundry that dries in a short time. And where something evaporates, there is coolness. "
Coolers are built with double walls, whereby the outer wall is bricked with a gap. The space between the walls is filled with charcoal or porous stone, over which water is trickled. Dry air flows through the gaps in the outer wall and causes the water in the moist coal or in the porous stone to evaporate. This makes the inside wall cold and cools the whole room. Such cold rooms can be kept at a temperature of 13 to 17 degrees Celsius even with an outside temperature of 40 degrees. A wind-driven fan is usually installed in the roof of the cold room.
See also
functionality
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kathy Barker: The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Handbook for Beginners , Elsevier GmbH, Munich, 1st edition, 2006, p. 29. ISBN 978-3-8274-1656-8 .
- ↑ a b home southwest. Schroedel Verlag KG, Hanover, co-author: Walter Kahn page 81