The new technology is expected bring big change in food processing, dairy industry and perishable food business

Chandan Sharma

IIT engineers working at Inficold have successfully developed a new refrigeration technique that not only saves energy, but is also not hazardous for environment.

The new technology ‘Coldvault’ is expected to revolutionize milk, food and vegetable’s production and preservation and will prove beneficial to producers, small farmers and vendors as over 30 percent of food products perish due to lack of proper cold storage system.

When cooling is required but electricity is not available, Cold Vault provides cooling from the storage.

Explaining the technology, Inficold’s Vice President, Nitin Kumar said, “It has reduced energy consumption by 50 – 60 percent. Moreover, the refrigeration system can be operated on solar energy too. It is completely environment friendly. Apart from it can reduce the cost of operation by eliminating DG sets from the operation”.

“It is capable of providing uninterrupted power supply 24 x 7 with much higher efficiency than the traditional method of cooling”, he added.

The team of engineers – Dr. Himanshu Pokharna, Nitin Goyal, Nitin Kumar and Sumit have been working on the project for a long time and they believe that it could bring big change in food processing, dairy industry and perishable food and vegetable business.

Cold vault works on dual technique. First, it is based on solar energy panel that provides 24 hours energy for refrigeration. It also provides energy in night by preserving energy. In addition, it also works on traditional method too. Therefore, it is able to reduce energy consumption by at least 50 percent.

This technique was honoured with Platinum award at the New Energy Global Cleantech Start up Festival.