Ultrasonic Thawer
Award: First place at Global Innovation Awards
Thawing can be a time-consuming process that often requires careful planning in advance. In today’s fast-paced world, many people lack the time for such tasks or forget to plan ahead. SONA provides a faster, safer, and more controlled method to thaw your frozen meats, poultry, or fish with the use of ultrasound assisted technology.
Year
Fall 2023
Timeline
10 Weeks
(Counter top thawing 32% & warm water thawing 14%)
You pull a package of chicken breasts out of the freezer and set it on the counter to thaw.
By the time you’re back from work, it will be ready to cook. Sounds smart, but it’s not safe.
When frozen food gets warmer than 40 degrees or is at room temperature for more than 2 hours, it’s in the danger zone where bacteria multiplies quickly.
4.8Hr/lb
+ Safest method
- Time consuming
- Planing required
- Risk of cross contamination
9Min/lb
+ Fastest method
- Uneven thawing
- Risk of partial cooking
- Can become mushy
- Need to cook right after thawing
1Hr/lb
+ Faster than fridge, safer than microwave
+ Even thawing
- Water waste
- Carful monitoring of water temp required
- Leak risk
1Hr/lb (For Thin Items)
+ Small and compact
- Risk of danger zone temps
- Limited effectiveness with larger items
Ultrasonic thawing is a method that uses high-frequency sound waves above the human hearing spectrum to thaw frozen items. These waves are transmitted through the medium which causes tiny vibrations at the molecular level that generate heat and break down the ice crystals
+ Uniformly thaws
+ Safe & Quick Thawing (<1Hr)
+ Energy Efficient
+ Process optimized for kind of meat
- Can be more expensive than traditional methods
- On the lower range of the ultrasonic spectrum there is a slight hum
Butcher
In a butcher shop, faster thawing times mean faster processing which enables quicker availability for sale
Professional chefs & restaurants
Within commercial kitchens, time is a critical factor, while also guaranteeing the highest quality of ingredients
Home-cooks & Families
Why compromise in the kitchen? The home cook acts as both the chef and the butcher where time and quality of ingredients are equally as important
Who
Julia
Early 30s
New mother, architect, home cook
Main Goal
After a full day of work I want the ability to quickly and safely thaw frozen ingredients so I can cook delicious meals for my family without having to plan so far ahead.
Barrier to Goal
I struggle with this because the existing thawing methods consume a significant amount of my time and require me to plan out my day in order to ensure that the ingredients are ready by dinnertime.
Two 50 mA ultrasonic speakers were wired to a 12V power supply and an ultrasonic generator. Two identical ground beef cubes of the same mass were tested, one exposed to ultrasound, the other not. Temperature readings were taken every minute.
Although my test piece was slightly more thawed in the end, minimal differences were found for it to be conclusive. This is likely because my system had a total power of about 1.2 watts, well below the proven 150W plus for effective thawing.
However, with proper equipment successful ultrasonic thawing has worked with great success, demonstrating an impressive 80% reduction in thawing times when optimal power levels are applied.
Using the right ultrasonic driver, each driver could output 46.5W of sound energy through the air. With body dimensions of 3” wide, SONA can fit 6 of these drivers with a total output of 279 W. This puts SONA right by the optimal 280W power which was found to be the fastest thawing rate.
