There are things you can live without, but when they appear in the house, they make life so much easier that they become indispensable and necessary. This concerns a useful invention - a cold accumulator.

Cold accumulator: properties and application

A cold accumulator is a small device, the main function of which is to maintain a cold temperature for a long time. The battery device is simple: a tightly closed container filled with a substance with a high heat capacity, that is, the ability to take heat, thereby cooling objects.

It is very convenient and effective to use the cold accumulator in summer cottages, in field conditions. They perfectly keep cold in refrigerator bags as a cooling component. Manufacturers advise using 1 standard battery for 15 liters of cooling product volume, but to effectively keep the cold, it is better to use 2-3 containers.

And at home stationary conditions, you can successfully use the battery to save energy, placing it in the freezer and thereby maintaining a stable temperature in it, and even increasing the freezing power. The accumulators will also serve in the event of hygienic defrosting of the refrigerator.

In case of problems with electricity, the battery will help preserve food until the electricity problem is eliminated.

Industrial cold storage accumulators are used in the sale of frozen products and in the transportation of products, which have perishable properties.

Preparation and action

It is not difficult to prepare a cold accumulator for use. The containers are placed in the freezer, turning on the maximum cooling mode, for the time required for the liquid to freeze completely. Freezing time directly depends on the type of filler. Then you can use it in an isometric bag for a day, the battery will take heat from the food, keeping them fresh.

Battery life depends on several factors:

• battery type;
• insulating properties and volume of the bag;
• rationality of placement;
• the initial temperature of the products.

Multiple batteries may be needed depending on the size of the bag. It is very important to correctly place them in the space of the bag:

• can be put on top of provisions;
• transfer horizontally in layers;
• place on top and bottom.

As the composition is thawed in the battery container, it is taken out of the bag, washed with water, wiped dry and placed back in the freezer.

It is necessary to store the cold accumulator when it is not in use in the refrigerator, this ensures the safety of the accumulator and increases the life of the refrigerator-freezing device.

Types of cold accumulators

The design features of cold storage accumulators depend on its purpose. Most often they are rectangular and flat, which provides good contact and fit. The shell is made of a tough, strong polymer that does not change its shape, or of a dense plastic film, which makes it possible to give the battery the desired shape before freezing.

Manufacturers are most often engaged in the manufacture of three main types of cold storage accumulators, depending on the filler:

• gel;
• water-salt;
• silicone.

Gel battery - a bag with a gel filler based on carboxymethyl cellulose, used for a dual purpose, as a cooling element and an element capable of supporting, if necessary, high fever... The effective action time is long. Safe and efficient.

The water-salt form of the cold accumulator in solid plastic containers is capable of maintaining temperatures from -20 to +8 degrees Celsius. Convenient in that the solution can be added to the container.

Silicone - a film bag filled with silicone. Despite the fact that the temperature of its composition is in the range from 0 to +2 degrees Celsius, the duration of maintaining such a temperature regime can reach up to seven days.

Choosing the right battery

When choosing a cold accumulator, it is important to take into account that the characteristic blue color does not have any functional properties: the dye has this effect. The life of industrially manufactured batteries is unlimited. Manufacturers guarantee environmental friendliness and safety of materials that do not change their characteristics depending on time and sudden temperature fluctuations. Typically, the capacity of a standard battery is 250-800 ml.

When choosing a battery for your needs, take into account its parameters: volume, design, composition of the filler.

DIY battery

Batteries can be purchased in specialized stores, place an order on Internet resources, but you can make it yourself, according to the "cheap and cheerful" principle. Of course, the key point is the composition of the liquid that is used as the filler of the plastic container. In industrial batteries, the refrigerant contains: water, an antibacterial additive and carboxymethyl cellulose. The latter serves as a thickener and controls the expansion of the water during freezing.

Considering the above, we offer several recipes for preparing liquid for a homemade cold accumulator.

Recipe number 1

Manufacturing process:

• in a liter of ordinary drinking water, preferably warm, prepare a saturated solution of table salt by adding about 400 grams of sodium chloride (table salt) to it;
• add three liters of water to the composition and add the required amount of wallpaper glue. The consistency of the liquid must be gelatinous;
• pour the solution into plastic containers with a screw cap or plastic bottles;
• put in the freezer and freeze.

Such a battery can keep the temperature in a special bag down to -20 degrees C for a long time.

Recipe number 2

For a homemade cold accumulator: you need to prepare a 20% solution of Glauber's salt. For 100 grams of solution, you need to use the following ratio of substances: 20 grams of anhydrous salt, 1 gram of CMC (wallpaper glue) and a certain amount of water.

This composition of the battery is capable of maintaining cold temperatures down to -10 degrees C.

Recipe number 3

This is the simplest, one might say force majeure, way to make a cold accumulator. It is necessary to mix water and wallpaper glue in the proportions: 96 grams + 4 grams.

Minus 1 degree Celsius in a bag of groceries can create refrigerator conditions, and will allow you to hold out for a while.

At home, it is difficult to maintain the tightness requirements, therefore, special attention should be paid to safety when using homemade cold accumulators, especially if they are planned to be used for cooling food.

Cold accumulator preparation video

Summer, summer cottage, fresh air, which means a good appetite! But here's the bad luck - the warmer the weather, the more difficult it is to keep many products fresh, primarily meat, fish, and dairy products. Especially if they are taken from the city to the dacha in a car, train, bus.

Pre-chilled food must be transported in a thermal container, more commonly called cooler bag... The lowered temperature stays there for about 2-3 hours. Such a bag will come in handy for trips to the country, picnics and when defrosting an ordinary refrigerator.

Which container should you choose? Depends on how you get to the cottage.
Do you carry everything on yourself? Optimal is a small cooler bag made of durable synthetics with an inner layer with reflective properties. A foam layer is required between the inner and outer layers.
For easy portability, the bag should have wide handles with padded shoulder pads. Or such a bag is placed in the usual larger volume.

Traveling to hacienda by car? You can buy a cooler bag in the form of a container with a volume of 10-50 liters. The cold lasts longer there. If the volume of the container is impressive, choose a model with support rollers and a telescopic retractable handle, otherwise you simply cannot drag the food supply to the machine.

But one refrigerator bag is not enough to keep you cool! She herself does not hold the desired temperature for long. Be sure to put in it cold accumulators, then the shelf life of food can be increased to 8-24 hours!

Before setting off, the batteries are placed in the freezer so that the liquid in them turns into ice.

The cold accumulator is easy to find on sale, but you can do it yourself.
You will need a plastic bottle of mineral water, water and regular salt.

It's simple: so much salt is poured into the bottle so that its layer at the bottom is at least 2 cm and filled with water, but not completely, but by 9/10 of the volume. If more, the ice can break the container.
The lid is screwed on, the water is shaken until the salt is completely dissolved. The bottle is wiped off and placed in the freezer. The battery is ready for use after about 12 hours.

The volume of the bottle is at your discretion. A small home-made battery, say, from a bottle of 0.3-0.5 liters, will not take up much space and will not make the load much heavier. But it will melt faster. But if a trip to the dacha is planned by car, you can use a liter bottle. Or several small ones, evenly distributing them between the products.

And finally.
How to save food stored in the refrigerator if the electricity is cut off in the country? Can be folded into a can, closed with a lid and kept in a well, half submerged in water.

An old way to keep meat fresh is to cut it into pieces and put it in nettles or horseradish leaves, then wrap it in paper and put it away in the coolest place. A piece of butter keeps well in a jar of cold water.
Based on materials from "World of Sadovoda"

We got our hands on the Proof of Concept.

Previous studies on concentrations -

I took a saline solution as a basis (the container is supposed to be corrosion-resistant).

Three cans of 200 ml, filled with 150 ml of water,

We do not add anything to the first, to the second two teaspoons of salt (about 20g), to the third - three (about 30g).

The precision scales are dead (some have washed them), so everything is by sight.

It turns out about 0, 133 and 200 g / kg, the tabular freezing temperatures are about 0, -8 and -13 degrees, respectively.

In 5 hours, the first jar (without salt) froze by ~ 90%, the second and third - about 10% and 5%.

During the night, the first two cans were frozen, the third - by ~ 90%.

The third completely froze for almost a day.

The taken out cans are sweating and dew freezes on them, but on can # 1 (with clear ice) it melts after a while, and # 2 and # 3 are still covered with frost (cute).

Conclusion - the optimal concentration depends on the intended use.

With a high concentration, they give a lower temperature (better "freeze"), but also take longer to "charge".

Above 200g / l "charge" may not work.

On the Internet, you come across a recipe "six tablespoons per 1 liter of water" - this is 150..180g / l (according to the reference book - 25g without a slide, with a slide - 30g), in my opinion, according to the result of the experiment - a bit too much.

I also found a recommendation to make a gel with carboxymethyl cellulose (http://forum.ixbt.com/post.cgi?id=print:64:1712), which is CMC and glue for wallpaper.

There is a certain reason - even by eye it can be seen that the solution is trying to stratify during freezing / thawing (when shaking to the lumen, the movement of liquid with different refraction / density is visible).

But for one-time crafts and use with a thermal bag, it makes no sense - shaking is easy.

Another substance for use in cold storage batteries is glycerin

Freezing point versus concentration:

Attention! Judging by the Russian-language sources (http://ru-safety.info/static/pngbig/307585170.png, http://www.tmbhim.ru/glycerine5.html) the number in the table is massive share.

It makes sense if only corrosion-resistant containers are available.

Well, let's remember the parameters for salt and IPA:

The salinity (S) of water is measured as grams salt per kilogram of water, and the freezing temperatures are as follows.

S (g / kg) 123 140 193 212 231 250 269 290 311 353

T (° C) −7.8 −9.1 −13.2 −14.6 −16.2 −17.8 −19.4 −21.1 −17.3 −2.7

Attention!!! Here massive concentration.

2. Isopropyl alcohol (IPA) solution:

Freezing Point of Isopropanol (2-Propanol) based Water Solutions

Isopropanol Concentration

(% by volume) 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Temperature oC 0 -4 -7 -15 -18 -21 -23 -29 -37 -57 -73

Attention!!! Here VOLUME concentration.

Cold accumulators are a very convenient device, indispensable for a hike or a long trip. They preserve food for a long time, do not allow them to deteriorate in the hot season. The cold accumulator is a small flat sealed container filled with a special compound that freezes quickly. Such a reusable device allows not only to cool, but also to accumulate cold in car refrigerators, isothermal bags. For a cooler bag, a cold accumulator is used as the main cooling element.

Cold accumulator types

Currently, three types of cold accumulators are produced: gel, water-salt and silicone. They differ in the types of filler. The gel cooler is made of a dense film with a special gel inside. It can both maintain a lower temperature and keep it at a higher one. The water-salt accumulator is a plastic container with a salt solution, it maintains the temperature in the range from -20 ° C to + 8 ° C. A silicone cooler is a tough plastic film bag filled with silicone. Such a battery maintains a temperature of 0-2 ° C, but for a long period (up to 7 days). This is its advantage over the other two types of coolers.

How to use a cold accumulator?

As a rule, the cold accumulator works very simply. Before use, it must be placed in the freezer for a long time to completely freeze the filler inside the device. After that, put it in an isometric bag and the battery will keep cold for about 20 hours (depending on the bag model), taking heat from the food in the bag. Then the cold accumulator must be rinsed with water and put back in the cold. The cold storage battery for the refrigerator bag is made from environmentally friendly materials, absolutely harmless to food. You can store such batteries in the freezer compartment of the refrigerator or in another place protected from light. The service life of these devices is unlimited when stored correctly. Depending on the size of your cooler bag and the amount of food in it, you may need more than one battery. If you use one cooler, then put it on top of the food, and if there are several, then transfer everything in the bag with them in layers, and put another one on top.

Cold accumulators are also used in household appliances. They stabilize in the freezer compartment of the refrigerator, thereby contributing to a more infrequent on / off of the compressor. In addition, the cold accumulator increases the time for safe storage of food, if the power is suddenly cut off and the refrigerator does not work. Sub-zero temperatures will still remain in the freezer until approximately 6 pm. It also increases the freezing capacity in freezers. When manually defrosting the refrigerator, it is very convenient to use cold storage devices.

Cold accumulators are used in heat chambers when selling ice cream or during the transportation of perishable foodstuffs.

How to choose a cold accumulator?

Today, stores offer a fairly large selection of cold storage accumulators from various manufacturers. Devices with a gel-like filler are very popular - they keep the cold longer and do not defrost. In addition, you should pay attention to what the container itself is made of: whether it will leak during use. Cold accumulators are manufactured in a wide variety of volumes: from 250 ml to 800 ml and more. Therefore, depending on your needs, you can select the required number of cold storage devices, then your stocks will not be afraid of the heat, and you can safely go on a trip.

A refrigerator bag is very useful thing for hikers and travel lovers. This bag will keep food fresh for longer. However, every refrigerator needs a refueling from time to time. If ordinary refrigerators require refueling with freon, then from time to time it is necessary to buy refrigerant for a refrigerator bag. However, we suggest not to rush into the purchase, because the refrigerant can be made at home. How exactly, we will find out right now.

We offer you to watch a video with instructions, and then repeat the whole process with us

So, what we need:
- a bag with a fastener, also called "Zip Lock";
- diapers;
- water;
- capacity;
- stationery knife.

Zip bags are sold at home stores and are used for freezing, so finding such a bag is not difficult.

Everything is clear with the materials, you can get to work. First of all, we need to pour some water into our container and paint with any color. As a container, you can use the lower part of the usual plastic bottle from under the soda. Regarding coloration, conventional colorants can be used.

The next step is to take the diapers and pour water on them.

Now we are waiting for the diaper to absorb the water well. After that, we take a clerical knife, since at this stage we need to open the diaper.

Next, take the freezer bag and pour the contents of the diaper into it.

Close the bag well. For better effect it is advised not to close the package immediately. First we close it in half, then we extract the air and close it tightly. This way our refrigerant will last longer.

Before using our homemade refrigerants, they must be placed in the freezer until completely frozen. If, for example, you need to go out in the morning, you can put the bags in the freezer overnight. This time is quite enough.

Now you know how you can quickly make refrigerator bag refrigerants at home. Making homemade refrigerants in this way will save you more than just the time you spend shopping. You will also save a lot of money, because in the manufacturing process we used minimal materials that do not require large costs.