Utilization of Al/SiO2 Reaction in Self-Heating Cylinder to Warm up Beverages

With the advancement of technology, food packaging has gradually changed to make changes for the consumer’s convenience. Self-heating packages allow customers to heat drinks by using exothermic reactions. In this study, a cylinder made of 316L stainless steel was used to heat 200 mL tea and 200 mL low-fat pasteurized milk using silicon dioxide and aluminum reactions. For this purpose, after pouring the reactive material and closing the cylinder lid, the heating process began by placing it inside the beverage. As a result, the temperature inside the cylinder after 82 s (1 minute and 22 s) increased from 28.1 °C to 122.6 °C and this amount of heat led to an increase in the temperature of the tea from 26.3 °C to 40.9 °C in 277 s (4 min and 37 s). Also, after 563 s (9 min and 23 s), the milk temperature increased from 24.8 °C to 38.1 °C. Then, the heating of the cylinder containing this reaction inside the mentioned beverages was simulated and modeled using COMSOL Multiphysics software. It has been determined that the experimental data and simulated models were properly fitted.