https://ucanr.edu/datastoreFiles/608-150.pdf

The food cold-chain and climate change

food cold-chain and climate change

The serious energy supply problems along with the conventional resources depletion and the environmental conscience regarding global warming and climate change have urged the need for a complete change in the energy production, supply and consumption patterns. Therefore, the switch towards renewable energy resources including solar, biomass, wind and hydro-power in addition to the development of energy efficient technologies are two key factors to attain a secure and reliable energy sector and to mitigate the global warming problem. Tri-generation is one of the most promising technologies allowing the efficient simultaneous production of heat, coolth and power with potential technical, economic and environmental benefits. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the latest developments in the field of combined cooling, heating and power generation. Recent tri-generation supporting mechanisms, prime movers, cooling technologies, system configurations, fuels and renewable energy resources employed are presented and discussed. As the operation strategy is the critical factor governing the tri-generation system performance, the current work presents the recent strategies developed and implemented to optimize the system performance and improve its overall efficiency. While certain technologies employed in tri-generation systems as internal combustion engines, gas turbines and absorption cooling are well-established and have already found their way to the commercial market, other promising technologies including organic Rankine systems, fuel cells and liquid desiccant cooling, are still in the research and development phase with additional work needed to demonstrate their potential and reach commercialization. Based on the detailed and comprehensive review conducted, a summary with the main conclusions in addition to recommendations for future work are reported.

Tri-generation systems: Energy policies, prime movers, cooling technologies, configurations and operation strategies

This paper presents a review of the available technologies to provide cooling from solar energy for both thermal and photovoltaic ways. Several multi-criteria performance indicators figuring in the literature are presented followed by a pros and cons analysis of the different solar thermal cooling processes. A market study is also carried out to evidence the potential of these solar cooling technologies. Finally, an overview of various solar cooling installations in Europe, Egypt and China is presented.

Solar driven cooling systems: An updated review

This paper deals with a review of the main research aspects concerning the formulation of the parameters indicating the characteristics and performance of thermoelectric cooling devices, with particular reference to a number of recent publications. The specific aspects addressed include some practical considerations referring to the thermoelectric figure of merit, the characterization of the cooling capacity, and the assessment of the coefficient of performance ( COP ). The contribution of this paper starts by categorizing the topics addressed by recent review papers, showing that these reviews generally had a wide focus and provided little specific details on thermoelectric cooling parameters and performance. Then, the dimensionless thermoelectric figure of merit is addressed by focusing on its conventional and modified definitions and indicating the values obtained for different thermoelectric cooling materials. Furthermore, the expressions of the cooling capacity for single-stage and multi-stage thermoelectric coolers are reviewed. Concerning the COP , its dedicated expressions are constructed starting from the classical formulation and introducing additional factors or modifications in order to take into account the Thomson effect, the dependence on temperature of the thermoelectric materials, and the effects of the electrical contact resistance, thermal resistance, thermoelement length and current. Finally, on the basis of the indications taken from the literature, further considerations are included on the COP values found in thermoelectric cooling applications, as well as on how to obtain COP improvements.

A review on thermoelectric cooling parameters and performance

https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00593332/document

J.S. Lewis

Papers

A review of emerging technologies for food refrigeration applications