Professional cold accumulators: Icepacks, PCM and high-performance thermal stabilizers

A cold stabilizer, also known as eutectic plate, ice pack, gel pack, icepack (PCM), is designed to maintain a stable temperature inside an isothermal solution.

What is a cold pack?

Maintaining a controlled temperature throughout transport is a requirement for many sectors, such as the food, pharmaceutical, and medical industries. To maintain the quality of so-called “sensitive” products and maintain compliance with the cold chain, the use of positive cold packs is a solution that meets this need.
A cold stabilizer, also known as a eutectic plate, ice pack, gel pack, or ice pack (PCM), is designed to maintain a stable temperature inside one of our insulated solutions. Its lifespan is 20,000 cycles. A thermal accumulator is a physical device for storing thermal energy, which means it will freeze (for a negative accumulator stored in a freezer). When the temperature of the external and internal environments of the insulated packaging changes, the energy accumulator will change phase and release the stored energy to guarantee the internal environment of the packaging and maintain a thermal profile suited to your products.

Why use an ice pack?

The main advantage of the ice pack is that it keeps the internal environment of the insulated packaging functioning properly. Maintaining the cold chain allows products (food or medical) to retain all of their properties. Imagine having to use a vaccine and its cold chain was broken during transport and it lost its properties, or the food product could develop bacteria.

PCM, cold pack, rigid, flexible, ice pack, eutectic, which one to choose?

Not all heat stabilizers have the same function. There are several product categories that meet different situational criteria. You wouldn’t use the same cold pack for a product that needs to be maintained at a temperature of 20°C as a product at 5°C, just as you wouldn’t use the same ice pack for a solution at -18°C. As mentioned above, the phase change of a thermal accumulator allows it to release stored energy, which is why a product whose critical point is 5°C will use a thermal stabilizer capable of changing phase from 0°C in order to preserve the internal environment of the insulated packaging. As the icepack is used in insulated packaging, there are dimensional constraints. Indeed, they must be able to fit and the packaging must close easily. Or in terms of capacity, there are several sizes of thermal stabilizer, a product that needs to be maintained at temperature for a period of 24 hours will not have the same need as a product that needs to be maintained for a period of 72 hours. This is why it is very important to choose the right thermal accumulator.