Refrigerated Transport: State of the Art, Technical Issues, Innovations and Challenges for Sustainability

The cold chain is responsible for perishable products preservation and transportation, maintaining a proper temperature to slow biological decay processes. Often the efficiency of less than ideal, significantly increasing food waste energy consumption. Refrigerated transport critical phase because its negative impact on consumption greenhouse gas emissions. It estimated that around 15% global fossil fuel used in refrigerated sector, so there has been growing interest last decades optimization these systems order reduce their environmental impact. Vapor compression refrigeration units, usually powered by means diesel engine, are most commonly road transport. This paper provides review (a) currently alternative technologies could impacts (b) models methods minimize fuel/energy emissions, focusing both reducing thermal loads solving vehicle routing problem.