How Does The IQF Evaporator Work?

How Does the IQF Evaporator Work?

Food Preparation: Food products to be frozen are pre-treated by washing, blanching, etc. in order to maintain quality during the freezing process. These pre-treatment steps help to remove impurities, bacteria, etc. from the surface of the food and also minimize the loss of nutrients during the freezing process.

Conveyor system operation: The pre-treated food is placed on a conveyor belt or mesh conveyor, which continuously transports the food into the freezing tunnel. This conveying process needs to maintain a steady speed to ensure that the food can pass through the freezing area evenly to achieve good freezing results.

Refrigerant evaporative cooling:

Change of state of the refrigerant: The key component in the IQF evaporator is the evaporator coil, which is filled with refrigerant. Under the condition of low temperature and low pressure, the refrigerant will change from liquid state to gas state, and this process needs to absorb a large amount of heat. For example, Freon, a commonly used refrigerant, will rapidly absorb the surrounding heat when it evaporates in the evaporator, causing the temperature on the surface of the evaporator coil to drop dramatically.

Heat transfer: When food passes through the freezing tunnel, the low temperature on the surface of the evaporator coil will exchange heat with the surrounding air. The low-temperature evaporator coil absorbs heat from the food and the surrounding air, causing the temperature of the food to drop rapidly. As the refrigerant continuously evaporates and absorbs heat, the low temperature of the evaporator coil surface can be continuously maintained to ensure that the food can be frozen quickly.

Air circulation assisted freezing: In order to improve the freezing effect, the freezing tunnel will usually be set up inside the fan or blower and other air circulation devices. These devices will promote cold air circulation in the tunnel, so that the cold air can fully surround the food, increase the contact area and contact time between the food and cold air, thereby improving the efficiency of heat transfer, accelerate the freezing speed of food.

Rapid freezing and ice crystal formation: under the joint action of the above process, the food can be quickly frozen in a very short period of time. The process of rapid freezing allows the water in the food to rapidly form tiny ice crystals rather than large ice crystals. The tiny ice crystals cause less damage to the food cells, which can maximize the preservation of the taste, texture and nutrients of the food.

Food Output and Subsequent Processing: Food products passing through the freezing tunnel have been quickly frozen to completion and are subsequently output from the conveyor belt. These frozen foods are usually packaged and stored for subsequent processing for transportation and sale.