Cold Storage Design

[Josip]

Hi, permafrost888,

Hi all. My company is building a 15,000 pallet 9-room 6-high cold storage facility here in the Philippines. Most rooms will be used for meat products but some rooms will be devoted to ice cream. We have hired the services of an experienced consultant. I am just a plain businessman but I am interested in the technical aspects of our project. I have some questions that I hope you guys can answer. I know there might not always be a right or wrong answer but I just wanted to hear your opinions. I also don't want to be shortchanged by suppliers. For example:

1. Choice of compressor - what is the best compressor? Sabroe/Frick, Grasso, Mycom, other brand? Pros and cons?

2. Choice of insulation panels - what is the best brand? Are there differences in quality or performance? Pros and cons? How can we tell?

3. Solar panels - does it make economic sense?

4. Best WMS for cold storage?

5. Best material handling equipment? Linde, Hyster, Toyota, others?

6. RFID?

Thanks in advance for all your inputs.

1. each mentioned brand is OK-you just need to follow requested maintenance, for you most important thing is compressor control panel and here I prefer UNISAB III for Sabroe/Frick which you can connect to your SCADA system ... Frick is using Quantum control panel which is also very good but I do not have experience with, the same is with Grasso or Mycom controls ...

2. of course you have a lot of brands .... good, better, the best ... check this link ....
http://www.ct-technologies.dk/PRODUCTS/ they can deliver panels, floor insulation and doors ... not the cheapest, but with very good quality ... worked with them for Nestle and for special cold room down to -50*C in India. I can recommend them at least to ask for offer...

3. both, hot water or for electricity is good to have .... economic sense will come sooner or later .... green energy always makes good economic sense ... you need a lot of warm/hot water for CIP

4. have no idea but on the market you have a lot of offers ... my suggestion is to contact some similar cold store and speak with people there ...

5. have no idea, but generally, must have a good service .... most important ....

6. just use normal bar code ... RFID is used in mega markets against stealing no need for cold store ...

May i ask why you don't recommend CO2? The reason we're looking at CO2 is for safety (food and otherwise) reasons. Our potential clients like Nestle require that we use "safer" refrigerants like propylene glycol or CO2. What other refrigerants might fit these requirements?

I don't have figures yet in terms of kw or compressor sizes. I do know that our capacity will be around 15,000 tons.

Thanks.

I prefer two stage NH3 system -45*C/-10*C, -35*C/-10*C, -10*C/32*C (of course with heat recovery system) .... CO2/NH3 is also very good, but for sure more complicated and dangerous too due to higher pressures within system. Combination like this is good because we keep all ammonia within engine room and CO2 circulates in areas with goods and people. CO2 is not harmful to goods at all (safe profit), but very dangerous for people if you have higher concentrations. Installation cost for CO2/NH3 system is lower then standard two stage system, but vary from case to case depending on physical layout and weather conditions.

Here in Croatia we use two stage NH3 system -45*C for hardening tunnels, -35*C for cold stores at -28/-26*C and -10*C as a high stage part .... so far no problems .... plant is safe that much as you care about ...

Seems, you are part of Nestle chain so there is no other way .... use NH3/CO2 ... Nestle white shirts prefer "safe" production areas (worked with them in Nestle Moscow) ... for me NH3 is more safe then the other refrigerants because its smell will tell me .... my friend be careful I'm here ... others are just silent killers ... CFCs/HCFCs/HFC even CO2.

Anyhow, not easy to choose between these two systems... good luck

Also, how do you test the quality of the insulation panels? Is there a standard test for this? The reason i'm asking all these questions is i want to avoid a situation where the supplier might be in cahoots with our engineers. You know sometimes an engineer might pass off as good a substandard piece of equipment in exchange for kickbacks. I just want to avoid those situations. If I am able to test or verify independently the quality of equipment then I can avoid things like that.

check this link http://www.brufma.co.uk/index.htm or you can search some other sources too... panel are not cheap but most important is installation of floor insulation, panels and doors ....

You can spend or save a lot of nerves i.e. money just having good or bad project. Good one is not possible to make for free it is a lot of works even for very skilled team. Sometimes is too late to change wrong things during installation or at least can be very expensive ....


You can always ask for second thought before you start with installation ....

Best regards, Josip