Producing frozen gasified product using gas hydrate technology (16-Dec-2009)

The gas hydrate technology can provide a rapid economical method for producing frozen gas containing product, suitable to be used as a final food product or a frozen beverage concentrate, which could further be diluted and consumed.

Gas (CO2) containing beverages are well known and highly enjoyed by general public. There were attempts by various food companies to develop gas containing solid frozen products, however the only means to maintain and control gas content in frozen product is to utilize the gas hydrate technology. Gas hydrate technology allows capturing gas molecules inside the crystalline structure formed by water molecules during the freezing. The two key issues for the gas hydrate production for food industry is uniform desirable gas distribution in the product and economical means of production.

We propose here-below a method where we define conditions of gas hydrate production in which gas hydrate and ice nucleation is induced simultaneously and in which is performed rapid solidification with adequate heat flux, thus providing uniform hydrate/ice distribution, with desirable gas content in final product.

To summarize :

• Hydrate can be produced by pre-dissolving CO2 into water or beverage (ex. Coca Cola), and freeze it under supercooling conditions
• More CO2 gas is dissolved into the water in supercooling condition, and the metastability can be maintained easily above zero degree at higher pressure
• The advantages of supercooling are
• More CO2 dissolution into the liquid during the supercooling phase
• Instant crystallization to produce uniform hydrate/ice mixture (which is important for the food industry for the uniform capture of various ingredients)

carbonated beverages, which due to the presence of CO2 gas has characteristic mouth-feel and taste, are well known in the industry. The typical brands include Coca Cola, Pepsi, etc. Generally carbonation is achieved by dissolution of CO2 gas in the beverages. To keep desirable CO2 content, pro...