i An update to this article is included at the end

Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 45 (2021) 101074

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Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments

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Original article

Experimental investigation and life-cycle cost analysis of a cold storage

enhanced vacuum cooling system using ice slurry
Chong Zhang a, b, Luwei Yang b, Wenye Lin c, *, Juan Wei b, Jiaxiang Chen b, Zhenjun Ma c
a
University of Chinese Academic of Sciences (UCAS), Beijing 100039, China
b
Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry (TIPC), Chinese Academic of Sciences (CAS), Beijing 100190, China
c
Sustainable Buildings Research Centre (SBRC), University of Wollongong (UOW), New South Wales 2522, Australia

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: This paper presents the development, experimental investigation, and life-cycle cost analysis of a novel cold
Vacuum cooling storage enhanced vacuum cooling (CSVC) system using ice slurry. Compared to a conventional direct vacuum
Cold storage cooling (DVC) system, the proposed system featured the integration of a cold storage section to temporarily store
Ice slurry
the ice slurry generated during off-peak electricity demand period, which was then utilised to facilitate the
Experiments
vacuum cooling over the peak demand period. It was found from the comparative experimental study that the
Life-cycle cost analysis
CSVC system using ice slurry can effectively provide similar vacuum cooling effect as the DVC system on the pre-
cooling process of lettuces. The life-cycle cost analysis demonstrated that the net present operation cost of the
CSVC system over a life-cycle period of 10 years was 30.2% lower than that of the DVC system, although its
energy consumption was 28.1% higher. The employment of cold storage also significantly cut down the size of
the refrigeration unit, which contributed to reducing the initial investment. The total life-cycle cost of the CSVC
system was $10,393, which was only 71.1% of the DVC system. Also, reducing the volume pumping rate in the
CSVC system did not affect the weight loss of the pre-cooled products.

weight loss by pre-handling processes [13–19], and for improving pre-

Introduction
As a preliminary key step of the cold chain, pre-cooling plays a sig­
nificant role to effectively maintain post-harvest quality and extend shelf
life of agricultural products [1–3]. Over the last decades, various pre-
cooling technologies have been developed and applied such as room
cooling, forced-air cooling, hydro-cooling and vacuum cooling [4].
Vacuum cooling relies on a low pressure built by a vacuum pump to
facilitate the rapid evaporation of the free water on the surface and (or)
in the agricultural products, thereby removing the heat and achieving
fast temperature descending [5]. Compared to the other pre-cooling
technologies, vacuum cooling technology has the advantages of high
energy efficiency, fast cooling process, outstanding product quality
preservation, and excellent microorganism inhibition [5–7]. As a
consequence, vacuum cooling has received increasing attention and
been widely used for pre-cooling of various agricultural products
including but not limited to leafy vegetables [8], fresh flowers [9],
cooked food [10,11], and mushroom [12].
Recent research on vacuum cooling mainly focused on the quality
enhancement of the pre-cooled products, especially for reducing the
cooling effect by rationalising system operation [20,21]. For instance,
Ding et al. [14] introduced a pre-wetting process by spraying water on
the fruits and vegetables before implementing vacuum cooling. The
sprayed water was then served as the main source of the evaporation
water during the pre-cooling process, which effectively reduced the
weight loss of the agricultural products to only 1%. Schmidt and Laur­
indo [22] injected brine with a salt concentration of 2%w.t. into cooked
chickens as a pre-handling process to reduce the weight loss. It was re­
ported that the weight loss rate can be reduced from 10% to 5% during
the vacuum cooling process. However, the pre-handling substantially
increased the pre-cooling time required. Cheng and Hsueh [23] pro­
posed a multi-stage vacuum pressure reserving strategy to avoid the
uneven temperature within the pre-cooled products for pre-cooling ef­
fect enhancement. The experimental verification demonstrated that this
strategy could evenly cool the leaves and roots of lettuces. Besides, some
other studies investigated the performance improvement from the
aspect of system energy consumption. For instance, Song and Liu [21]
found that rationally adjusting the volume pumping rate of the vacuum
pump can not only achieve a uniform temperature distribution within
the agricultural products, but also reduce the energy consumption of the

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: wl950@uowmail.edu.au (W. Lin).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seta.2021.101074
Received 22 March 2020; Received in revised form 24 June 2020; Accepted 1 February 2021
Available online 9 March 2021
2213-1388/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
C. Zhang et al.
Nomenclature
b ratio of residual value to investment
C cost, $
cp specific heat capacity, kJ/(kg⋅K)
e electricity price per kWh, $/kWh
F operation frequency of the vacuum pump, Hz
I current, A
i interest rate, %
j index of the measurement
K number of the measurements
m mass of pre-cooled products, kg
N life-cycle period in year
Nday number of the days per year for system operation
n number of pre-cooling batches
P power, kW
Q̇r capacity of the refrigeration unit, kW
r inflation rate, %
rm ratio of maintenance cost to investment
T temperature, oC
t time, h
U voltage, V
u uncertainty
vacuum pre-cooling process by about 2%. Poonlarp et al. [20] concluded
from a series experimental field tests that the final pressure of the vac­
uum cooling process needed to be carefully selected to avoid chilling
injury of the agricultural products, while at the same time, reducing the
cooling time required and energy consumption.
Despite of the extensive research on the vacuum cooling, it appears
that few studies investigated the improvement of the vacuum cooling in
cost-effectiveness, especially through system enhancement using
energy-saving or cost-saving technologies. Due to its fast cooling char­
acteristics, vacuum cooling has an inherent high instantaneous cooling
load which requires a refrigeration unit with a high cooling capacity. As
a consequence, it not only increases the operation cost under the peak
demand period, but also impedes the downsizing of vacuum cooling
systems. To resolve this problem, cold storage can be an alternative
solution. Cold storage technology has been studied and utilised exten­
sively in many fields to cut down system size [24], enable demand-side
management [25], improve energy efficiency [26], and reduce the
operation cost by making use of electricity tariff [27–29]. For instance,
the utilisation of cold storage for demand-side management at com­
munity level was studied by Ebrahimi [30]. It was found that compared
to direct electrical storage, the cold storage not only had the advantages
of lower investment and higher net present values, but also enabled a
flatter load profile. The economic benefit of using different cold storage
strategies in a hypermarket was investigated by Erdemir and Altuntop
[27]. The results showed that a low operation cost can be achieved by
increasing storage capacity and using the stored cold energy during the
electricity peak hours. It was also found that applying a load leveling
cold storage strategy can result in a shortest payback period, while a full
storage can provide the highest saving in cooling cost. These studies
demonstrated the benefits of using cold storage in different fields,
however, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no application of cold
storage in vacuum cooling for economic benefit enhancement has been
reported.
Cold storage for enhanced vacuum cooling systems can be achieved
through various mature methods in public domain, such as chilled water
storage [31], encapsulated ice storage (e.g. ice-on-coil, ice-ball-in-tank
etc.) [32] and so on. An alternative approach is using ice slurry, which
has attracted increasing attention since the last decades [33–35].
Compared to the conventional encapsulated ice storage, cold storage
2
Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 45 (2021) 101074
W energy consumption, kWh
Greek letters
ε cold storage efficiency, %
Δ sensor accuracy
cosφ power factor, %
Subscripts
0 the initial condition at the beginning of the first year
A type A uncertainty
B type B uncertainty
f different operation frequencies of vacuum pump
I current
i ice slurry pump
n nominal condition
off-peak off-peak demand period
P power
peak peak demand period
r refrigeration unit
U voltage
v vacuum pump
w water pump
using ice slurry tends to be more energy-efficient, since it minimises the
inefficient thermal conduction within the bulk ice and further enhances
the heat transfer through thermal convection within multi-phase flow.
This advantage can not only reduce the energy consumption during ice
charging by improving the evaporation temperature of refrigeration
unit, but also enable the rapid response to the dynamic cooling load of
vacuum cooling during ice discharging [34].
This paper presents the development, experimental investigation,
and economic analysis of a novel cold storage enhanced vacuum cooling
(CSVC) system using ice slurry. This system featured a cold storage to
temporarily store the ice slurry generated during off-peak period which
can then be used to facilitate the vacuum cooling during the peak de­
mand period, thereby contributing to the down-size of the system and
the reduction of system operation cost. Both the energy consumption
and the life-cycle cost of the system were investigated, in comparison to
that of a conventional direct vacuum cooling (DVC) system. The influ­
ence of the volume pumping rate of the vacuum pump on the perfor­
mance of the CSVC system using ice slurry was also studied.
Development of the CSVC system using ice slurry and research
methodology
Development of the CSVC system using ice slurry
The new CSVC system using ice slurry developed is illustrated in
Fig. 1a and b. It consists of three sections, including a vacuum section, a
cooling section, and a cold storage section. The vacuum section is used
to implement the vacuum cooling for various agricultural products,
which mainly comprises a vacuum chamber and a vacuum pump, and
shares a water vapour condenser with the cold storage section. The low
pressure in the vacuum chamber required in a vacuum cooling process
can be maintained by the vacuum pump to enable the evaporation of the
free water of the agriculture products, thereby resulting in a rapid
cooling effect. The top of the water vapour condenser is basically a spray
packed tower filled with steel meshes, in which ice slurry can be sprayed
and used to condense the flash water vapour through direct contact heat
transfer, so as to avoid the excessive energy consumption of the vacuum
pump caused by exhausting the water vapour with a high specific vol­
ume. The cold storage section is designed to temporarily store the ice
C. Zhang et al. Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 45 (2021) 101074

Experimental systems

In this study, the performance of the CSVC system using ice slurry
was evaluated through a comparative experimental investigation
against the DVC system, with a focus on the characteristics of the CSVC
system under different operation modes. The two experimental systems,
i.e. the conventional DVC system and the CSVC system using ice slurry,
were established for comparative investigation (see Fig. 1). To enable
the performance evaluation of the CSVC system under different opera­
tion modes with various volume pumping rates, a variable speed driver
(VSD) was installed and utilised to control the operation frequency of
the vacuum pump. The main components used in the two experimental
systems are summarised in Table 1.
A vacuum pressure sensor (from Testo [39]) with an accuracy of
±0.1% was installed at the duct between the vacuum chamber and the
vacuum pump to measure the vacuum pressure of the vacuum section.
The temperatures of the agriculture products at the centre and on the
surface, as well as the temperature of the condensation water, were
measured using PT100 sensors with an accuracy of ±0.01 ◦ C. The
voltage of each system was measured using a digital multimeter (from
Fluke [40]) with an accuracy of ±1%. The current of each power con­
sumer was also measured using a current sensor (from Polaris Electric
[41]) with an accuracy of 0.2%, and then utilised to calculate the cor­
responding power consumed according to a standard voltage supply, as
presented in Eq. (1). The relative uncertainty propagation of the power
consumed by individual components was determined using Eq. (2), in
which the uncertainties for individual measured variable can be deter­
mined using Eq. (3).
√̅̅̅
P = 3⋅U⋅I⋅cosφ (1)
√̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅
( )2 ( ) ( )2̅
uP 1 ∂P ∂P 2 ∂P
= ⋅ u + u + u
P P ∂U U ∂I I ∂cosφ cosφ
√̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅
(u )2 (u )2 ( u )2
(2)
U I cosφ
= + +
U I cosφ

Table 1
Summary of the main components used in the experimental systems [36–38].
Component Part number/ Technical parameter Supplier
feature

Vacuum 2 m3, Box-type Load capacity of Self-developed

chamber 100–200 kg
Vacuum pump SV40B, Single Nominal pumping rate Leybold Ltd.,
rotary vane of 40 m3/h Germany
Fig. 1. Schematics of the experimental systems.
Refrigeration Compressor: Nominal cooling Emerson Climate
unit (in CSVC) Copeland ZB19 capacity of 7.0 kW. Technologies Co.,
slurry generated during the off-peak demand period and use it for water Nominal COP of 4.0 Ltd., USA
vapour condensation, which mainly consists of an ice slurry generator, a (at evaporation
temperature of 5 ◦ C)
water pump, an ice slurry pump and the water vapour condenser. The Refrigeration Compressor: Nominal cooling Emerson Climate
ice slurry generator can use the super-cooled water to generate ice unit (in DVC) Copeland ZB58 capacity of 25.7 kW; Technologies Co.,
slurries, which was then stored in the water vapour condenser whose Nominal COP of 4.2 Ltd., USA
bottom part also serves as an ice storage tank. The cooling section is a (at evaporation
temperature of 5 ◦ C)
traditional refrigeration unit, whose evaporator acts as a super-cooler to
Water pump (in CDLF2-2 Flow rate of 3 m3/h; Nanfang Pump
produce super-cooled water for ice slurry generation over the off-peak CSVC) Head of 16 m; Industry Co., Ltd,
demand period. Nominal power of 0.3 China
Rather than relying on the cooling section to directly condense the kW
flash water vapour in the conventional DVC system (see Fig. 1c and d), Ice slurry pump JLF2 Flow rate of 5 m3/h; Nanfang Pump
(in CSVC) Head of 5 m, Nominal Industry Co., Ltd,
the proposed CSVC system features the integration of a cold storage power of 0.3 kW China
section which decoupled the direct connection between the vacuum Water vapour Shell and tube Heat transfer area of Self-developed
section and cooling section. This design provides the CSVC system with condenser (in type heat 30 m2
the capability to separately generate and utilise cold energy through ice DVC) exchanger
Water vapour Spray packed Stainless steel mesh Self-developed
storage, thereby befitting the system operation from electricity tariff
condenser (in tower type
economically. CSVC)

3
C. Zhang et al. Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 45 (2021) 101074

√̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅
√ ( )2 over the pressure range from 5 to 1 kPa were designed and tested, to gain
√∑K
√
√̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅ √ xj − xj ( )2 an insight of the influence of the volume pumping rates on the perfor­
u = u2A + u2B =
√j=1
+ √̅̅̅
Δ
(3) mance of the CSVC system. They were named as Cases 1–4 hereafter, as
K(K − 1) 3 summarised in Table 2, in which the operating frequencies for the
vacuum pump were given to represent different volume pumping rates.
where U and I are the voltage and current, u is the uncertainty, cosφ is
the power factor, x is the value of measured variable (e.g. U and I etc.), K Key performance indicators
is the number of the measurement, Δ is the sensor accuracy, subscripts A In this study, energy consumption and life-cycle cost of the CSVC
and B represent type A and type B uncertainties respectively, and sub­ system using ice slurry were analysed to assess its energy and economic
scripts U, I and P represent voltage, current and power respectively. All performance, compared to that of the DVC system. For per batch of the
the experimental data were collected using an Agilent data logger (from pre-cooled products, the total energy consumption of the CSVC and DVC
Agilent [42]) with a sensing interval of 1 s. systems can be calculated using Eqs. (4) and (5), respectively.
WCSVC = Wr,w,CSVC + Wv,CSVC + Wi,CSVC
Setup of the experiments
j=Δtv,CSVC /Δtsampling
( ) ∑
Experimental procedure = Pr,CSVC + Pw,CSVC ⋅Δtr,CSVC + Pjv,CSVC ⋅Δtsampling
The experimental procedure for the DVC system was straightfor­
j=1

ward. Agricultural products were first loaded in the vacuum chamber, in +Pi,CSVC ⋅Δti,CSVC (4)
which the pressure was then reduced by switching on the vacuum pump.
WDVC = Wr,DVC + Wv,DVC
When the pressure dropped to a certain value, the refrigeration unit was
switched on to provide cold energy in the water vapour condenser for j=Δtr,DVC /Δtsampling
∑
j=Δtv,DVC /Δtsampling
∑
vapour condensation, while the non-condensable gases were further = Pjr,DVC ⋅Δtsampling + Pjv,DVC ⋅Δtsampling
exhausted by the vacuum pump. The whole system was switched off
j=1 j=1

until the temperature of the agricultural products reached a setting (5)

temperature.
where P is the power, Δt is the time period, the subscripts r, v, w and i
Different from that of the DVC system, the experimental procedure
represent the refrigeration unit, vacuum pump, water pump and ice
for the CSVC system was slightly complicated. The cooling section was
slurry pump, respectively, and subscript sampling indicates the sampling
switched on beforehand to generate and store enough ice slurry in the
time. Specifically, if the volume pumping rate was changed at the
cold storage section. Basically, it was carried out during the off-peak
boiling zone in CSVC, Eq. (4) needs to be revised as Eq.(6).
electricity demand period, to make use of the electricity tariff for cost-
effective operation. In specific, the supercooled water (below 0 ◦ C) Wf ,CSVC = Wr,w,CSVC + Wv,f ,CSVC + Wi,CSVC
was first generated by drawing the water through the super-cooler, and ( )
= Pr,CSVC + Pw,CSVC ⋅Δtr,CSVC + Pv,f ,CSVC ⋅Δtv,f ,CSVC
it was then directed into the ice slurry generator which employed ul­
trasonic vibration to stimulate the nucleation and generate the ice
j=(Δtv,CSVC − Δtv,f ,CSVC )/Δtsampling
∑
slurry. The generated ice slurry was eventually collected and stored in + Pjv,CSVC ⋅Δtsampling + Pi,CSVC ⋅Δti,CSVC
j=1
the ice storage tank. The cooling section was switched off after gener­
(6)
ating a required amount of ice slurry, depending on the mass and type of
the agricultural products to be pre-cooled. During the peak electricity where the subscript f indicates different volume pumping rates under
demand period, the cold storage section was switched on as required, in different operating frequencies at the boiling zone. The average power
which the ice slurry was circulated by the ice slurry pump through the consumed by the vacuum pump under different volume pumping rates
spray packed tower to condensate the flash water vapour from the can be calculated using Eq. (7).
vacuum chamber. Similar to that of the DVC system, the vacuum section
was operated during the peak demand period, and the non-condensable Pv,f ,CSVC = Pv,CSVC ×
F
(7)
gas was exhausted by the vacuum pump. The vacuum cooling process Fn
was terminated when the temperature of the agricultural products
reached a predetermined set point. where F is the operation frequency for the vacuum pump, Pv,CSVC is the
average power consumed by the vacuum pump over the boiling zone
Design of the experimental test cases under nominal pumping rate, and the subscript n indicates nominal
Two sets of experimental test cases were designed. The first set of the condition.
experimental test cases were designed for the comparative investigation The life-cycle cost of the CSVC and DVC systems can be determined
between the DVC and the CSVC using ice slurry. In both systems, the using Eqs. (8)–(11) [43].
same amount of lettuces with a mass of around 100 kg was loaded Ctotal = Cdevice + Coperation (8)
individually for one pre-cooling batch, and the same termination tem­
perature set point of 4 ◦ C was used. In the CSVC system, the amount of Cdevice = Cinvestment − Cresidual,0 = Cinvestment − b⋅Cinvestment ⋅kN (9)
the ice slurry required to pre-cool the batch of lettuces was calculated
based on the specific heat capacity, the mass, the required temperature
drop of the lettuces, and the cold storage efficiency.
It has been reported that the volume pumping rate over a boiling
zone was a key factor which significantly affected the cooling load, pre- Table 2
cooling time required, and the quality of the pre-cooled agricultural Different volume pumping rate schedule for different experimental test cases.
products [17]. The boiling zone was the period when the temperature of
Pressure zone range Frequency (Hz)
the pre-cooled products experiences a fast decreasing trend due to the
Case 1 Case 2 Case 3 Case 4
significant evaporation of the free water, which approximately starts
from 5 kPa depending on the original product temperature and termi­ 101–5 kPa 50
nated at around 1 kPa. Therefore, in the second set of experimental test 5–1 kPa 50 45 40 35
1–0.6 kPa 50
cases, four experimental test cases with different volume pumping rates

4
C. Zhang et al. Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 45 (2021) 101074

( )
k⋅ 1 − kN system was assumed to be the same as that for the CSVC system. It is
Coperation = ⋅Coperation,0 (10) worthwhile to mention that the labour cost was not considered in the
1− k
operation cost of the vacuum cooling systems to simplify the life-cycle
k=
1+r
(11) cost analysis, since it was directly determined by the number of pre-
1+i cooling batches and was identical for both systems.

where C is the cost, in which the operation cost for the CSVC and DVC
systems under the initial condition can be determined using Eqs. (12)
and (13) respectively, b is the ratio of residual value to investment which
was set as 10% [44], N is the life-cycle period in year, r is the inflation
rate which was set as 2.5% in this study [45], i is the interest rate (i.e.
discount rate) which was set as 4.0% in this study [46], and subscript
0 indicates the initial condition.
CCSVC,operation,0= C[(CSVC,energy,0 + CCSVC,maintenance,0
)
= Wr,CSVC + Ww,CSVC ⋅eoff − peak
( ) ]
+ Wv,f ,CSVC + Wi,CSVC ⋅epeak ⋅nCSVC + rm ⋅CCSVC,investement (12)
CDVC,operation,0 =C
( DVC,energy,0 + CDVC,maintenance,0
) (13)
= Wr,DVC + Wv,DVC ⋅epeak ⋅nDVC + rm ⋅CDVC,investment
where e is the electricity price per kWh, n is the number of the pre-
cooling batch per year, and rm is the ratio of maintenance cost to in­
vestment which was set as 1.25% [43]. The electricity price [47] at the
off-peak demand period from 23:00 to 7:00 next day was $0.05/kWh,
while it was much higher over the peak and shoulder demand periods, as
presented in Fig. 2. Note that to simplify the calculation, the electricity
price from 7:00 to 23:00 was unified as $0.145/kWh which was the
time-weighted average value (i.e. highlighted as the red dash line in
Fig. 2) and this period was regarded as a “nominal” peak period. For a
CSVC system, the number of pre-cooling batches within the life-cycle
can be calculated using Eq. (14).
⎡⎛ ⎞ while the water vapour condenser (i.e. the spray packed tower type) in
⎢⎜Q̇r,CSVC × Δtoff − peak × ε⎟
nCSVC = Nday ⋅⎣⎝ ⎠ (14)
cp × m × ΔT
where Q̇r is the capacity of the refrigeration unit, Δtoff-peak is the range of
the off-peak period, ε is the cold storage efficiency due to heat loss (set as
85% in this study), cp is the specific heat capacity of the pre-cooled
product (generally set as 3.8 kJ/(kg⋅K) for lettuces), m is the mass of
pre-cooled products, ΔT is the desired temperature drop of the products
in the pre-cooling progress, Nday indicates the number of the days per
year for system operation (set as 300 days), and the operator “[” in­
dicates the downward rounding. For the sake of reasonable comparison,
the number of pre-cooling batches in the life-cycle period for the DVC
Results and discussion
Results of the comparative investigation
Fig. 3 presents the variations of the pressure of the vacuum chambers
and the surface temperature of lettuces during the pre-cooling progress
in the DVC and CSVC systems. It can be found that the pressure in both
DVC and CSVC systems experienced an almost identical exponential
decreasing trend, while the variation of the lettuce temperature can be
divided into three periods, including a retention period, a rapid
descending period and a slow descending period. In specific, in the first
period (i.e. the retention period), the temperature of lettuces decreased
slightly, while the corresponding pressure decreased drastically. In the
second period (i.e. the rapid descending period), when the pressure
reached below 3 kPa, the fast water evaporation at a low saturation
temperature (i.e. lower than 24 ◦ C) was enabled, leading to a rapid
temperature decrease. It approximately corresponded to the boiling
zone. In the third period (i.e. slow descending period), the temperature
decreasing rates reduced gradually, since the pressure decrease
approached its limit. However, the temperature decreasing rate in the
DVC system was slightly higher than that in the CSVC system, indicating
a slightly better flash water vapour condensation performance, thereby a
high vacuum pumping performance in the DVC. This was due to the fact
that a lower temperature (down to − 10 ◦ C) can be provided by directly
using the evaporator as the water vapour condenser in the DVC system,
the CSVC system could only provide a low temperature at around 0 ◦ C.
Even this, both systems could cool the lettuces from 24 ◦ C to 4 ◦ C, and
the overall cooling processes in the DVC and CSVC lasted 20 and 23
munites, respectively.
Despite of the similar cooling process, additional energy consump­
tion has been introduced from different sections in the CSVC system
using ice slurry, as illustrated in Fig. 4a. In the cold storage section, the
additional pumps (including the ice slurry pump and the water pump)
contributed 0.22 kWh to the additional energy consumption. It is
worthwhile to mention that the energy consumption of the ice slurry
pump was relatively small (i.e. only around 0.07 kWh), due to its short
working time period, which was switched on when the pressure of the
vacuum section reduced to around 3 kPa, i.e. around 10 minutes after

0.25
Electricity price 25 120
Surface temperature, DVC
Surface temperature, CSVC

0.20 Pressure, DVC 100

20 Pressure, CSVC
Lettuce Temperature (oC)

Absolute Pressure (kPa)

Electricity Price ($)

80
0.15 15

Average price 60

10
0.10
40

5
0.05 20
Retention Rapid Descending Slow Descending
Peak Period Period Period
Off-peak 0 0
0.00 0 5 10 15 20 25
07:00 11:00 15:00 19:00 23:00 03:00 07:00 Time (min)
Time
Fig. 3. Variation of pressure and temperature during the pre-cooling process in
Fig. 2. Electricity tariff in Beijing. the DVC and CSVC.

5
C. Zhang et al.
2.0
Energy consumption per batch (kWh)
1.6
1.2
0.8
0.4
0.0
CSVC
a) Energy consumption per batch.
Fig. 4. Energy consumption and operation cost of the DVC and CSVC using ice slurry for pre-cooling per batch of the lettuces.
the starting of the pre-cooling process. In the cooling section, the COP
for the refrigeration unit in the CSVC system reached around 2.5, which
was slightly higher than that of 2.45 in the DVC system. This was
because that the evaporating temperature of the refrigerant in the CSVC
system was stable at around − 3 ◦ C compared to that low to − 10 ◦ C in the
DVC system, which enabled a more energy-efficient cooling process.
However, the refrigeration unit had a slightly higher energy consump­
tion of 1.05 kWh than that of 0.95 kWh in the DVC system, since slightly
more ice slurry needed to be generated considering a practical cold
storage efficiency due to heat loss. In the vacuum section, the vacuum
pump in the CSVC system consumed more energy (i.e. 0.46 kWh) than
that in the DVC system (i.e. 0.4 kWh), due to the fact that the duration of
the CSVC was higher than the DVC. As a result, the total energy con­
sumption for per batch of lettuces using the CSVC system reached 1.73
kWh, which was around 28.1% higher than that using the DVC system,
as presented in Fig. 4a. It is worthwhile to mention that the relative
uncertainties of total energy consumption were only 0.4% for the CSVC
system and 0.2% for the DVC system, indicating that the conclusions
from the above energy consumption analysis was reliable.
Fig. 4b presents the energy costs of the two systems under the initial
condition. It can be found that the total energy cost of the CSVC was only
$0.136 per batch of the lettuces, compared with that of $0.195 for the
DVC, despite of its higher total energy consumption, since the main
energy consumption of CSVC was in the off-peak period when the power
price was much lower than that in the peak and shoulder period.
Considering the whole life-cycle, the net present energy cost of the CSVC
system over the life-cycle was $5660, which was 30.5% lower than that
of the DVC system, as presented in Table 3.
Besides, the CSVC system using ice slurry had the advantage that the
capacity of the refrigeration unit in its cooling section (i.e. nominally 7.0
Table 3
Life-cycle cost analysis of the DVC and CSVC systems.
Cost
Device cost Vacuum chamber
Vacuum pump
Cooling section
Cold storage section
Total investment (Cinvestment)
Total device cost (Cdevice)
Operation Net present energy cost over the life-cycle
cost Net present maintenance cost over the life-
cycle
Net present operation cost over the life-cycle
(Coperation)
Life-cycle cost (Ctotal)
Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 45 (2021) 101074
0.20
Vacuum pump Vacuum pump
Ice slurry pump
Ice slurry pump
Water pump Water pump
Cooling section Cooling section
0.15
Energy cost per batch ($)
0.10
0.05
0.00
DVC CSVC DVC
b) Energy cost per batch under the initial condition.
kW) can be much smaller than that of the DVC system (i.e. nominally
25.7 kW), without any failure to facilitate the vacuum cooling process.
Thus, it boasted of its low initial investment and relatively lower
maintenance cost due to the down-sizing of the refrigeration unit in the
cooling section. The total investment of the CSVC system was $4600 in
this study, which was around 27.0% lower than that of the DVC (i.e.
$6300), as detailed in Table 3, in which the cost of the main system
components sourced from the corresponding suppliers [36–38]. The net
present maintenance cost of the CSVC system was $531, compared to
that of $728 of the DVC system. Due to the cost-effectiveness of both
system operation and initial investment, it can be found that the life-
cycle cost of the CSVC system was $10,393, which was only 71.1% of
the cost of the DVC system.
Results of CSVC using ice slurry under different volume pumping rates
Cooling process under different cases
Fig. 5 presents variations of the vacuum chamber pressure and let­
tuce surface temperature during the pre-cooling processes under
different test cases. It can be seen that the pressure variations under the
four test cases were almost identical, with only slight difference when
the system pressure was low (see Fig. 5a). When the vacuum chamber
pressure reached below 3 kPa, the contribution of a higher volume
pumping rate to fast pressure dropping became obvious. Correspond­
ingly, the fast temperature decreasing occurred and a clear difference
among the temperature variations can be found in Fig. 5b, especially at
the second half of the cooling processes. Under a higher volume
pumping rate over the boiling zone, a higher temperature decreasing
rate was found, resulting in a shorter cooling period. By improving the
volume pumping rate the moisture movement through evaporation from
the centre to the surface of the pre-cooled products was enhanced,
thereby resulting in a fast temperature decreasing rate, and requiring a
short pre-cooling time. The cooling time required under Cases 1–4
CSVC DVC reached 23, 27, 30 and 33 minutes, respectively, indicating that the pre-
cooling process can be accelerated through using a higher volume
$1400 $1400
$700 $700
pumping rate.
$1100 $4200 Fig. 6 compares the core and surface temperatures of lettuces under
$1400 – different test cases. Due to the tightly wrapped structure of lettuces,
$4600 $6300 there existed a temperature difference between the core and surface of
$4202 $5755
the lettuces, and the decreasing rate of the core temperature was slightly
$5660 $8139
$531 $728 lower than that of the surface temperature. This temperature difference
can be up to 3 ◦ C, which varied from case to case depending on the
$6191 $8867 volume pumping rate at the boiling zone. For instance, it was larger in
Case 4 under a lower volume pumping rate than that in Case 1 (see
$10393 $14622
Fig. 6). This was due to the dynamic water evaporation process at the
6
C. Zhang et al. Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 45 (2021) 101074

120 25
Case 1 Case 1
3 Case 2 Case 2
100 Case 3 Casel 3
20
Case 4 P<3kPa Case 4

)
Absolute Pressure (kPa)
80 2

Lettuce Temperature (
15

60
1
10
40
0
10 15 20 25 30 3
5
20
Tfinal

0 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
Time (min) Time (min)

a) Vacuum chamber pressure. b) Lettuce surface temperature.

Fig. 5. Variations of vacuum chamber pressure and lettuce surface temperature in the CSVC system under different test cases.

30
Surface temperature of Case1
Core temperature of Case1
25 Surface temperature of Case 4
Core temperature of Case 4

20

15

10

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
Time (min)

Fig. 6. The surface and core temperatures of lettuces in Cases 1 and 4.

core of the lettuces. A higher vacuum pumping rate tended to draw the
water vapour from the core of lettuces more efficiently, impeding the
building-up of a relatively higher pressure at the core which slowed
down its cooling process. The quality of the pre-cooled lettuces under
different cases is summarised in Table 4. It can be found that the relative
water loss under Cases 1–4 was almost the same, reaching 2.85%,
2.80%, 2.79% and 2.75%, respectively.
Fig. 7 presents the variation of the cooling load under difference
cases. It can be seen that the water evaporation began and the cooling
load surged significantly from 0 until it reached a peak, when the vac­
uum chamber pressure reached below 3 kPa. Under the cases with
higher volume pumping rates over the boiling zone, higher peak cooling
loads were reached (e.g. 29.5 kW for Case 1 and around 24.0 kW for Case
2, respectively), compared to the cases with lower air pumping rates (e.g.
around 22.8 kW for Case 3 and around 19.5 kW for Case 4, respectively).
In comparison to Case 1, Case 4 could reduce the peak cooking load
significantly by around one third, indicating that the size of the spray
Table 4
Weight loss of lettuce before and after pre-cooling.
Weight or weight loss Case 1
Weight before pre-cooling (kg) 100.45
Weight after pre-cooling (kg) 97.59
Weight loss (kg) 2.86
Relative water loss 2.85%
Fig. 7. Variation of the cooling load under different cases.
packed tower can be reduced substantially under a low volume pumping
rate, thereby further cutting down the investment of the vacuum cooling
system. However, it is noted that the time required for the vacuum
cooling process was longer in Case 4, due to the small volume pumping
rate used, which may finally contribute to the increase in the operation
cost for the vacuum pump and ice slurry pump.
Energy consumption and life-cycle cost of CSVC under different cases
The energy consumption and life-cycle cost for pre-cooling per batch
of lettuces using the CSVC system under different cases are illustrated in
Fig. 8. It can be seen from Fig. 8a that the total energy consumption
slightly increased from 1.73 kWh in Case 1 to 1.84 kWh in Case 4, when
reducing the volume pumping rate. It is not only due to the increase in
the energy consumption of the vacuum pump (from 0.46 kWh in Case 1
to 0.52 kWh in Case 4), but also because of the higher energy con­
sumption of the ice slurry pump and its operation time per batch
increased under a small volume pumping rate. It can be seen from
Fig. 8b that when increasing the volume pumping rate over the boiling
zone, the life-cycle cost experience a decreasing trend, and the minimal
value for Case 1 was $10,393. As comparison, the life-cycle cost for
Cases 2–4 were 3.8%, 5.5% and 6.5% higher than that of Case 1,
Case 2 Case 3 Case 4
respectively. It can be concluded that different from the conventional
99.85 101.12 100.83
DVC whose energy consumption and operation cost were reported to be
97.05 98.3 98.06
2.80 2.82 2.77 reduced by decreasing the volume pumping rate [21], the CSVC system
2.80% 2.79% 2.75% using ice slurry performed with a higher energy efficiency and a lower

7
C. Zhang et al.
Fig. 8. Variation of the energy consumption and life-cycle costs for pre-cooling per batch of the lettuces using the CSVC system under different cases.
operation cost under a higher volume pumping rate.
Conclusions
A novel cold storage enhanced vacuum cooling (CSVC) system using
ice slurry was developed and experimentally investigated by comparing
to a conventional direct vacuum cooling (DVC) system in this study. The
proposed system featured the integration of a cold storage section which
can fulfil the temporary storage of ice slurry generated during off-peak
electricity demand period, and utilise it in to facilitate the vacuum
cooling during peak demand period. The pre-cooled product quality, the
energy consumption and the life-cycle cost-effectiveness were investi­
gated based on a series of experimental tests to assess the performance of
the CSVC system using ice slurry, and the influence of volume pumping
rate on the pre-cooling process.
The comparative experimental investigation demonstrated that the
CSVC system using ice slurry can provide a similar cooling process as the
DVC system when used to pre-cool lettuces, by merely introducing a
slight difference in the cooling time required. By using the CSVC system,
the energy consumption was around 28.1% higher than that of the DVC
system, due to the longer cooling period, using extra pumps, and heat
loss during cold storage. However, it was more cost-effective to use the
proposed system for pre-cooling. The utilisation of the cold storage can
not only effectively cut down the capacity of the refrigeration unit, but
also make use of the electricity tariff, thereby significantly reducing the
initial and operation costs of pre-cooling, respectively. The total life-
cycle cost of the CSVC system was $10,393, reaching only 71.1% of
the DVC system, in which the initial cost was reduced by 27.0% and net
present operation cost was reduced by 30.2% respectively, compared to
that of the DVC system. Decreasing the volume pumping rate over the
boiling zone brought detrimental effects which slightly increased the
energy consumption and operation cost when using the CSVC system for
pre-cooling.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Chong Zhang: Writing - original draft; Investigation; Formal anal­
ysis. Luwei Yang: Project administration; Supervision; Funding acqui­
sition. Wenye Lin: Writing-review & editing; Methodology. Juan Wei:
Conceptualization. Jiaxiang Chenv Validation. Zhenjun Ma:
Supervision.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
8
Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 45 (2021) 101074
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgement
This research was financially supported by the National High Tech­
nology Research and Development Program of China (Grants No.
2016YFD0400905).
Author statement
Chong Zhang developed the experimental systems and carried out
the experimental study in consultation with Juan Wei, and performed
the analytic calculations with the support from Wenye Lin. Chong Zhang
and Wenye Lin wrote the manuscript. Luwei Yang conceived the original
idea and supervised the project. The results were verified by Jiaxiang
Chen. Zhenjun Ma provided critical feedback and helped shape the
manuscript. All authors discussed the results and contributed to the final
manuscript.
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 Update
Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments
Volume 46, Issue , August 2021, Page

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seta.2021.101324
 Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 46 (2021) 101324

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/seta

Corrigendum

Corrigendum to “Experimental investigation and life-cycle cost analysis of a

cold storage enhanced vacuum cooling system using ice slurry” [Sustain.
Energy Technol. Assess. 45 (2021) 101074]
Chong Zhang a, b, Luwei Yang a, Wenye Lin c, *, Juan Wei a, Jiaxiang Chen a, Zhenjun Ma c
a
Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry (TIPC), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing 100190, China
b
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS), Beijing 100049, China
c
Sustainable Buildings Research Centre (SBRC), University of Wollongong (UOW), New South Wales 2522, Australia

The authors regret that in the above published paper, typos occurred The authors regret that there are typos.
in the affiliation names of the authors. The corrected affiliations are The authors would like to sincerely apologise for any inconvenience
shown above. caused.

DOI of original article: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seta.2021.101074.

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: wl950@uowmail.edu.au (W. Lin).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seta.2021.101324

Available online 1 June 2021

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