Emerging phase change cold storage technology for fresh products cold chain logistics

Cold chain logistics is the process of transporting fresh products from producer to consumer in a constant low-temperature environment. Cold chain logistics efficiency is directly related to food safety and energy consumption. At present, cold chain logistics equipment mainly relies on diesel engine-driven vapor compression refrigeration system, which has high energy consumption, high equipment cost, and other defects. Phase change cold storage technology is a kind of technology that utilizes the property of absorbing and releasing heat during the phase change process of phase change materials (PCM) to realize the storage and release of cold energy. The combination of phase change cold storage technology and cold chain logistics equipment can effectively reduce cold chain logistics costs, energy consumption, emissions. Utilizing its property of maintaining a constant temperature during phase change, the temperature of the cold chain logistics process can be maintained uniformly, thus prolonging the fresh products preservation time. This paper reviews phase change cold storage technology and its application in fresh products cold chain logistics, summarizes the classification, performance optimization technology, and selection method of phase change materials, and describes the application scenarios and equipment types of phase change cold storage technology in cold chain logistics. Finally, it looks forward to the development direction of phase change cold storage technology applied in cold chain logistics and puts forward the problems that need to be solved to promote its development.