Management of Food Shelf Life and Energy Efficiency with Adaptive Food Preservation System (AFPS) Appliance

This paper demonstrates how Adaptive Food Preservation System (AFPS) Appliance reduces the total energy expenditure in food preservation via reduction of food wastage and of thermal gradient between food storage space and the Appliance compartment. It is motivated by the fact that current energy efficiency effort in refrigerators predominantly focuses compressor efficiency, directly or indirectly. However, if foods are wasted before being consumed, the energy consumed along the Cold Chain (manufacturing and logistics) and in household refrigeration will both be wasted. Enhanced by AFPS Packages and Active Thermal Insulation, an AFPS Appliance has two functionalities - Shelf Life Management is responsible for food wastage reduction while Energy Efficiency Management is the responsible for reducing energy consumption through reduction of thermal gradient. The optimal compartment temperature range for the Appliance to reduce thermal gradient is between 10°C and 15°C, which results in a reduction of thermal gradients by 69.6% (between compartment and chiller) and 38.2% (between compartment and freezer), when compared with that of today’s refrigerator. Experimentation on simulated compartment and chiller shows a 50.2% reduction. Sources of deviation and the corresponding rectifications are proposed to bring the reduction up close to 69.6%.