25 years working with ice slurry: history, current technologies and future developments.

Ice Slurry is an exciting fluid. It is often called a secondary refrigerant or a heat transfer fluid, because it does not evaporate inside the heat exchanger like refrigerants do. But looking at the energy density and the heat transfer characteristics, ice slurry is on eye level with many HFC refrigerants. Ice slurry can be used inside heat exchangers and in direct contact cooling, offering many interesting areas such as fish or produce chilling. In addition, it can be used for pipe cleaning or for pushing (pigging) precious products out of pipes without significant product loss. Ice slurry has evolved from a niche product into a technology applied in many fields. Nonetheless, developing efficient ice slurry production, effective ice slurry storage and reliable ice and additive concentration measurements as well as crystal growth issues remain challenging tasks for engineers, making ice slurry as interesting as it was 25 years ago.