FOR thousands of years farmers have understood the basic benefits of nitrogen, (although non-specifically), through crop rotation and use of fertilizers. As an inert gas, nitrogen acts as a perfect carrier or blanketing agent in all kinds of chemical processes.
Production of Liquid Nitrogen (LN2) as a by-product of oxygen production has lead gas companies developing a wide variety of applications over the past 100 years or so. The food industry is one such industry that has benefited in the use of nitrogen in both its gaseous and liquid form “ certainly over the past 30 years.
Our industry is familiar with some of those applications in which we market the benefits of liquid nitrogen freezing and chilling over mechanical processes. However, in regions such as North America and Western Europe, these applications are relatively mature but in other regions around the world “ particularly in Asia/Far East and also in South America “ such uses are still developing strongly.
Food Freezing
In many cases the use of Liquid Nitrogen (LN2) freezing, or Cryogenic freezing as it is known, is a preferred alternative to the use of Mechanical Freezing devices such as traditional refrigeration units (spiral freezers, bed freezers etc.). Cryogenic freezing has traditionally been attractive due to its low capital costs as units tended to be far smaller, and cheaper to produce. Companies have been able to gain large refrigeration capacity at little or even zero capital cost, simply by renting cryogenic storage tanks and freezing/chilling equipment from gas companies and buying Liquid Nitrogen (LN2) to suit demand.
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