A phase change material (PCM) based passively cooled container for integrated road-rail cold chain transportation – An experimental study

•An experimental study on a PCM-based passively cooled container for cold chain.•The internal temperature can be maintained 2~8 °C uniformity for 94.6 h.•The system COP was 1.84, with an energy-saving by 86.7% than diesel-powered reefer.•The cost and emission reduced by 91.6% and 78.5% than diesel ones, respectively. This paper reports a phase change material (PCM) based passively cooled container for integrated rail-road cold chain. It was equipped with cold energy storage plates containing the PCM. A separate charging facility was built to charge the plates. Four kinds of fresh vegetables and fruits were used for integrated rail-road transportation. The charging time and efficiency, the internal temperature and relative humidity of the container during delivery, as well as the coefficient of performance (COP) of the system, were obtained. The results were compared with a diesel-powered reefer in terms of energy consumption, operation costs and environmental impact. The quality of products before and after the cold transportation was also compared. The results showed that the new container had a discharging time of up to 94.6 h and the system COP could be as high as 1.84. The results also demonstrated that the energy consumption, the operational cost, and the emission were reduced by 86.7%, 91.6%, and 78.5%, respectively.