Jennifer Reyes 12/19/22
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Freeze Prevention for IBC Totes

Freeze Prevention for IBC Totes
Jennifer Reyes
12/19/22

Freeze Prevention – Millions of IBC Totes are found in warehouses, freight cars, loading docks, and trailer beds.  While transporting them may be relatively easy, keeping their contents from freezing is far from a walk in the park.  Millions of dollars annually are lost due to spoiled/frozen IBC products including food, dairy, chemicals, polyurethane, petroleum, and other temperature sensitive materials.

So just how do you keep a tote full of honey or resin or polyurethane at optimal temperatures?  The answer is… IT DEPENDS… depends on several factors like:

1. What are the external ambient temperatures working against you?  Wind?  Rain?  Humidity?

2. What is the material you are trying to heat?

3. Are you trying to increase or maintain temperature?

4. Will you be transporting the IBC Totes?

5. Will the Totes be exposed to snow and ice?

 

freeze protection of totes

 

Then there are other factors to consider like viscosity, price, and the list goes on and on.  Generally speaking we recommend two types of devices for heating tote materials although they are very different in application.The first is an immersion heater.  Immersion heaters have been used for decades to heat liquids inside drums, buckets, totes, and tanks.  Although immersion heaters do heat up quickly, there is a tendency for them to burn product and corrode quickly… both factors you want to avoid when dealing with expensive compounds.

The second is an insulated jacket or electric blanket that wraps around the plastic or metal tote, offering a barrier of warmth and insulation to an otherwise very exposed surface.  The most reliable and efficient tote blanket heaters we observed are manufactured by either Powerblanket , ProMAX or Brisk-Heat.  On the surface they look very similar, but the Powerblanket offers great bang for the buck with their patented Heat Spreading Technology and UL / CSA classification.  

$2,329.00 Powerblanket® TH330-240V IBC Tote Heater w/Top Lid Cover - 330 Gallon 240V

TH330-240V: The 330 gallon (1250 liter) IBC tote heater from Powerblanket offers cutting-edge technology in a flexible, easy-to-install design that will effectively, evenly, and reliably heat your IBC tote, keeping the contents protected and at the optimal