Rapid Freezing Power of Cryogenic Gases

Advantages of Cryogenic Freezing

Fresh fish rapidly loses its original quality due to microbial growth and enzymatic processes. Lowering the temperature of seafood below freezing point rapidly slows down the growth of microorganisms - not just as a result of the drop in temperature, but also due to the reduction in free liquid water activity. This deprives microorganisms of the water they need to metabolize.

Cryogenic freezing can help to minimize contamination risks so entire fish and fish fillets as well as shrimps, clams, crabs, mussels and other shellfish can be handled and distributed safely. The use of cryogenic gas at very low operating temperatures (typically between -60°C and -100°C) provides a high heat transfer rate for quick freezing times and considerable quality gains.

Cryogenic freezing significantly reduces dehydration losses relative to conventional freezers. With our impingement models, losses may be reduced by a factor of between five and ten. This makes impingement freezers ideally suited to individually quick frozen (IQF) seafood products such as shrimps. Pressurized liquid nitrogen is sprayed onto the product at high velocity to freeze it immediately. The nitrogen permeates the product's thermal resistance and creates an ice crust around it - locking in natural flavor, nutrients and moisture. Our tunnel and spiral freezers, on the other hand, are the models of choice for fish fillets.

Our CRYOLINE freezer family comes in a wide range of models to support just about all processing, throughput and footprint requirements. Our freezers use either liquid nitrogen (LIN) or liquid carbon dioxide (LIC) gas as the cryogen. CRYOLINE freezers are also successfully deployed to lower temperatures for downstream processing, enabling you, for example, to add protective glazes to fish.