JPH06178675A - Thawer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a thawer of a boardlike unit capable of rapidly thawing a frozen material while leaving the advantage of natural thawing at ordinary temperature or by heating at a low temperature. CONSTITUTION:This thawer is constructed by placing or sandwiching a frozen food between boardlike units 2 of a graphitic compound such as artificial graphite, natural graphite or pyrolytic graphite, prepared by subjecting amorphous carbon or a carbon material having different graphitization degrees to pressurizing treatment and forming at a high temperature and showing a large thermal diffusivity and capable of thawing the material at ordinary temperature or by heating at a low temperature. The thawer is capable of preventing the freshness of the frozen material from deteriorating without deteriorating the frozen material at ordinary temperature or by heating at the low temperature and remarkably shortening the thawing time without discharging drips and providing the allowance time for breeding of saprophytes while leaving the advantage of the natural thawing. Furthermore, the thawed product can sanitarily and industrially be produced at a low cost.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a melter, and more particularly to a melter capable of rapidly thawing a frozen product by heating at room temperature or low temperature while leaving good natural thawing.

[0002]

Frozen foods obtained by freezing foods and refrigerating them are
Since it is frozen at low temperature and stored at low temperature, it has better quality than other stored and processed foods in terms of quality preservation. For this reason, the number of frozen foods is increasing, and in the conventional thawing method called natural thawing, it is gradually returned in ice water, running water, or air at a temperature of around 5 ° C like an electric refrigerator. It is mainly used for thawing raw frozen meats, fish, shellfish, etc.Fast thawing is steaming in hot oil, boiling water, oven or microwave. In each case, a thawing method is used in which the temperature is rapidly returned to high.

[0003]

As described above, in addition to the conventional natural thawing, a thawing method using heaters and steam at a temperature of 60 ° C. or higher has been attempted, but the thawing temperature is high. A problem is the deterioration of frozen products due to the long thawing time. For example, JP-A-56-151
As disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 488, there is proposed a device for piercing and thawing frozen food with a large number of metal pricking needles planted on a metal base containing a heater, but a complicated device such as a temperature control mechanism is proposed. Since it is attached, it is not suitable as a cooking tool for home use from the viewpoint of operation and cost.
Also, at hotels, inns, fast foods, or large-scale restaurants, if the number of customers is usually known, the refrigerator will be thawed and then slowly thawed to drip.
It has the disadvantage that it takes too much time even though it has the advantage that it does not come out and lose its taste. For this reason, for example, when high-frequency treatment is adopted for shortening the thawing time for frozen foods such as meat, there is a problem that the taste is lost and the taste is lost due to high temperature, deterioration of meat quality, or outflow of drip.

The present invention solves these drawbacks and makes it possible to thaw a frozen product within a short time at normal temperature or low temperature heating (40 ° C. or lower). The present invention is a plate of a graphite-based compound such as artificial graphite, natural graphite, or pyrolytic graphite, which is obtained by molding an amorphous carbon material at a high temperature under pressure and exhibits a large thermal diffusivity due to the degree of crystal growth and orientation. The present invention provides a melter comprising a plate-shaped body, on which frozen products are placed or sandwiched, and which is rapidly thawed at room temperature or low temperature heating. Another object of the present invention is that the thawing method and mechanism are simple, and the goodness of natural thawing is retained without losing the freshness and umami, it is hygienic without giving a margin time for breeding of various bacteria, and can be thawed within a short time. It is to obtain an industrially advantageous melter for frozen products.

[0005]

In order to achieve the above object, the present inventors have found that the thermal diffusivity due to the heat transfer phenomenon generally depends on the thermal conductivity and the heat transfer coefficient, and It is necessary to directly lower the temperature of the thawing plate, and as the plate temperature drops sharply, the thawing force becomes stronger, and this property is related to the value of the thermal diffusivity, and it is not simply manifested if the thermal conductivity is large. Based on the conventional technology, it is relatively inexpensive and has thermal conductivity and electrical conductivity, and is used for conductors, heating elements and heat exchangers that utilize its corrosion resistance and good thermal conductivity. In the case of the processed and molded graphite plate, its thermal diffusivity shows a large value, and in addition to good thermal conductivity, it has a small specific heat and density and satisfies the necessary and sufficient conditions for thawing. As a result of various investigations focusing attention, the present invention has been reached.

In order to achieve the above object, in the melting apparatus of the present invention, an amorphous carbon material is subjected to high-temperature pressure treatment molding to form a plate-like body. The type and composition of the graphite compound used in the present invention is not particularly limited, but is arbitrarily selected from various artificial graphites having a thermal conductivity of 0.1 cal / cm · sec ° C. or higher, natural graphite, pyrolytic graphite, etc. be able to. In general, solid carbon and graphite are composed of plate-like bodies in which carbon atoms are strongly bonded in a ring shape and are arranged on a hexagonal net plane, and the layers are stacked one above the other. It is said that the layer structure becomes larger and the stacking develops and becomes graphitic. In particular, graphite has both metallic properties and non-metallic properties, and has good thermal and electrical conductivity close to that of a metal, but its density is close to that of a non-metal. The specific heat shows an intermediate value between them. In the present invention, any graphite type can be used, but those having a higher degree of graphitization and crystal orientation are suitable, and a graphite type rather than a carbon type is preferable. Further, it is also possible to adopt a constitution in which the upper and lower two sheets of the graphite plate-like body are opposed to each other, and frozen products are brought into contact or contact with each other in a sandwiched state so as to perform thawing at normal temperature or low temperature heating.

[0007]

[Function] Generally, the thermal diffusivity due to the heat transfer phenomenon depends on the thermal conductivity and the heat transfer coefficient, but what is needed directly for thawing the frozen product is the speed of the thawing plate temperature decrease, and the plate temperature drops sharply. The higher the heat energy of the solid, the more efficiently it moves to the frozen product. That is, the thawing power becomes stronger. This property is related to the value of the thermal diffusivity and is not sufficient if the thermal conductivity is simply high. In the plate-like body obtained by subjecting the graphite-based compound material of the present invention to high-temperature pressure treatment, the fact that the thermal diffusivity is large due to the degree of crystal growth and orientation serves as an important factor in thawing.

[0008]

EXAMPLES The present invention will be described below with reference to examples. Example 1 Thawing Example Frozen and roasted thickener also used 5 mm thick, 300 mm long × 210 mm wide graphite plate, Tohoku Kyowa Carbon Co., Ltd., Escafite GE-1
02, bulk specific gravity (g / m ³ ) 1.68, thermal conductivity (Kc
al / m · hr · ° C) 120, electric resistivity (μΩcm)
860, epoxy resin surface coating treatment, thickness 0.5 mm, using a graphite plate at an initial temperature of 7 ° C. in a room at a temperature of 23 ° C., a length of 85 mm and a width of 11
0 mm × 20 mm height sample, contents, frozen grated roe 90 g, sealed in a vinyl bag pack material, and installed in a wooden case 1 as shown in FIG. Table 1 shows the results of the time required for thawing when placed on the plate. In the figure, 3 is an auxiliary heater with an overheat protector, 4 is a grooved stainless steel plate, 5 is a power cord, and 6 is an intermediate switch. In addition, a sample in which a sample that was similarly sealed and packaged was placed on a normal glass plate was used as a comparative example. The above results are shown in Table 1, and the time required for melting was 25 minutes in the comparative example, and 8 minutes in the non-heated graphite (normal temperature).

[0009]

[Table 1]

Example 2 Thaw Example Using frozen tuna A graphite plate having a thickness of 5 mm, a length of 300 mm and a width of 210 mm, manufactured by Tohoku Kyowa Carbon Co., Ltd., Escafite GE-1
34, bulk specific gravity (g / m ³ ) 1.78, thermal conductivity (Kc
al / m · hr · ° C) 150, electrical resistivity (μΩcm)
460, surface fluorine resin, 1.0 mm thick coating treatment, room temperature 23 ° C., the sample shape is as follows: bottom area 43.7 square meters, height 8 cm, 460
g of the frozen product having an initial temperature of 8 ° C. was placed on a non-heated graphite plate or a heated graphite plate (contacted with a heater of 0.08 w / cm ² ) in the same manner as in Example 1. It was placed and the time required for thawing was measured. In the comparative example, a similar sample was placed on a normal glass plate. The results are shown in Table 2, and the time required for thawing is 9 minutes on the non-heated graphite plate, 5 minutes on the heated graphite plate, and 28 minutes in the comparative example.

[0011]

[Table 2]

[0012]

INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY The present invention uses a plate-like body made of a graphite-based compound, which is formed by subjecting an amorphous carbon material or the like to a high temperature pressure treatment and has a large thermal diffusivity, and changes a frozen product by heating at room temperature or low temperature. It prevents the freshness from dropping, keeps the good thawing naturally, does not let the drip flow out, and gives a wide thawing time for miscellaneous bacteria. In addition, it has the effect of being industrially inexpensive to manufacture.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a sectional view showing an example of a melting device according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view showing an example in which a thawed product is sandwiched between two graphite plates and brought into contact with each other to thaw them.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Wooden case 2 Graphite plate 3 Auxiliary heater with overheat protector 4 Stainless steel plate with groove 5 Power cord 6 Intermediate switch 7 Strut 8 Defrosted product

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁵ Identification code Office reference number FI technical display location // C01B 31/04

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A graphite-based compound such as artificial graphite, natural graphite, or pyrolytic graphite, which is obtained by molding an amorphous carbon material at a high temperature under pressure and has a large thermal diffusivity due to the degree of crystal growth and orientation. 2. A melter comprising a plate-shaped body according to claim 1, wherein a frozen product is placed or sandwiched between the plate-shaped bodies, and the frozen product is rapidly thawed at room temperature or low temperature heating.