WARMHALTEGESCHIRR MIT LATENTWAERMESPEICHER

Heat-insulated food carrier (I) has a hollow space (1) filled with insulating material. Between space (1) and the actual food container (5), there is another cavity (2) filled with a heat-storing material (II) which undergoes a phase transition at a suitable temp. (II) is pref. a carboxylic acid of formula Me(CH2)nCOOH, esp. stearic or palmitic acid (with n = 16 or 14, respectively), or a paraffin. USE/ADVANTAGE - (I) is useful as a container for keeping food hot during transport. System prevents the food from cooling due to loss of heat to the outside and evapn. of moisture from the food, by retaining the energy as the latent heat of fusion of (II), thus enabling the food to be kept at about 60 deg.C for more than 1 hour. Overall wt. of (I) is acceptable, and material (II) is cheap, readily available, non-toxic, and easily washed away if the container is damaged.