Thermal Distribution

[Thermal Dynamics]

Ok, First all all this is not a project and not under any official rules or regulations. This is just a project that I don't know how to start with. Also I have no way as of now to test any ideas that come up. Now that's out of the way my idea is a way of dispersing heat from one object( In this case food) to either another object or air. It's basically a reverse microwave I have been thinking about it and I had the idea of putting the food into a cold environment so the heat would disperse from the hot food to the cold air. Again no way to test this at the moment and not sure if it would even physically work. Of course this wouldn't work with everything. It would have to be thin enough for the heat to disperse out quickly.

Ok if you have made it past that here are the requirements I am thinking of for a starting model.
1. Has to cool down food quickly.(Obviously)
2. Has to be able to cool down a range of food types.
3. Cool down items within the range of foods between 0-1 inches thick.(Not sure how reasonable that is just a basic idea.)
Any help or input from anyone that thinks of something is welcome. Feel free to say anything that you think might work below. Thank You

[deleted-249560]

As you get into this, you have to remember that you can't make a 'reverse microwave'. Microwaves cook by causing the food/water molecules to get excited and heat themselves. You can't do that in reverse. That said though, you might look to these two commercial devices for inspiration. The first is the blast chiller. It's like a refrigerator or freezer that has a lot of excess heat capacity and it's designed specifically to take hot food and bring it down to below room temperature as quickly as possible. https://www.ckitchen.com/p/beverage-air ... HwodvXsBBA. They make them all sizes - this is a countertop model.

A second device is the PolyScience Culinary Anti-Griddle. It's shaped like a pancake griddle but instead of getting hot it gets really cold. http://polyscienceculinary.com/products ... hz-12-amps. It shares your idea of making things cold quickly but in a different form.

You said you want to disperse heat from the food to another object? These two devices demonstrate ways of quickly transferring the food heat into either air or a cold metal surface. Wine chillers also do this, but they transfer the heat from a bottle of wine into cold liquid. You can also investigate Peltier junction devices as a source of cooling. They work by using current to make opposite sides of a combined metal surface hot and cold. They're used often in 12V vehicle coolers.

You said you have no way of testing. If you actually build something you can certainly probe the food and watch the temperature drop. I think you may have meant that you have no means of testing an idea - I'd counter that you can build a prototype of whatever your new idea is and then test it out. It's okay to take apart an existing thing and use it for parts for a prototype or proof of concept. If you do that, please do it safely and get whatever assistance you need from a qualified adult. Working with compressed gasses, refrigerants and cold surfaces can be dangerous.

I like your ambition and wish you luck in your research. Please write back if you have any questions that any of us can help you with.

Howard

[Thermal Dynamics]

Wow that was quick, Thank you!
Yes I knew you couldn't do a reverse microwave that was just that was just the concept was to cool down food. Thank you for the products as well I especially like the skillet one because heat transfers faster through a solid than it dose a gas correct? Although it would only be able to do certain thickness evenly. Right? It would just keep the part that was touching the cold part cold and not spread throught the entire food item. I mean of course it would eventually but not what I was trying to accomplish. Also i've decided I was more worried about the speed for the first prototype than anything else really we can work out the kinks as it develops. The one problem of not being able to build a prototype still exists though. I have or could find the knowledge to build a prototype but I have no materials for it. If I had a way of buidling a prototype I would have already tried to build one and just tweaked it until I got the correct outcome. So without the ability to attempt to make the machine I was hoping to come up with an idea that would most likely work physically before building a prototype and then not having it work. Although you did bring up the point of just taking apart of the failure which I just didn't think of(Duh).

[deleted-249560]

A surface or liquid in contact with your food will definitely cool it down faster than just air. And yes, the thickness makes a difference too. A food product with the same density throughout will cool faster in the thinner areas than the thicker ones.

Having access to materials to build things can be tricky but can also be easily overcome. As you talk to people and explain what you're doing you might just find that people offer up all sorts of things. While you're looking for parts continue to do research on heat transfer and perhaps you'll come across a method that hasn't been used to cool food yet.

Good luck in your research!

Howard