TUNNEL DEVICE FOR FREEZING WATER-CONTAINING FOODSTUFFS Russian patent published in 2022 - IPC F25D13/06 A23L3/36 A23L3/32 

FIELD: food products freezing.

SUBSTANCE: proposed group of inventions is intended for organizing a continuous technological process of freezing food products using tunnel-type quick-freezing equipment. The device contains a thermally insulated chamber, a chain conveying device equipped with clamping brackets, inlet and outlet conveyor belts, containers, a bath for liquid refrigerant - ethanol, a cooling system, a filtration and pumping unit, a fan unit, a control and monitoring unit and paired modules with electrode matrices, equipped with an electric field generator. The bath can be made single-channel or multi-channel. The control and monitoring unit controls the switching on of the potentials of the electrodes until the completion of the water-ice phase transition. The device provides rapid cooling of the food product to a temperature of -15°C to -20°C and the simultaneous creation of an inhomogeneous alternating electric field around the frozen product with static strength gradients. An alternating electric field is created due to the presence of paired modules with upper and lower matrices of electrodes, which are supplied with a high-voltage alternating current potential or which are grounded, respectively.

EFFECT: ensuring the prevention of the formation of ice crystals, continuous in-line freezing of food, fast and efficient heat removal from the food, long-term preservation of the organoleptic properties and physico-chemical characteristics of the product, reducing the time of freezing food compared to other freezing methods.

26 cl, 3 tbl, 13 dwg