Review of Recent Patents on Ice Slurry Generation

Ice slurry can be employed with advantages in many fields, including refrigeration, air conditioning, supermarket display, food process and mine cooling and so on. The most important issue concerning the ice slurry application is still its generation method, relating to the efficiency and reliability of water or aqueous solution converting to ice crystals or ice slurry. Though the ice slurry generation methods have been widely investigated, patented and employed, recent patents of ice slurry generation methods after the year of 2000 are reviewed in this article, which is mainly focused on the generation efficiency and reliability. The novel promotions on the already disclosed methods, including the scraped surface generator, the supercooling method, the direct contact generation, the vacuum ice slurry generator are introduced, expecting to provide more inspirations for the designers.