Thermal Pallet covers are essential to the shipping process for many businesses. They ensure that products remain at a consistent temperature whilst they are being shipped, and also serve the wider benefit of protecting products from damage and other external influences.
Thermal pallet covers are available in a wide variety of sizes, materials and thicknesses, ensuring that they meet the specific needs of your products and the dimensions of your pallets.
Whilst they are most commonly used for the shipping of temperature-sensitive products, they can also be used for the storage of these products too.
Here’s everything you need to know about thermal pallet covers and how they work:
How Do Thermal Pallet Covers Work?
In the simplest terms, thermal pallet covers work by creating a barrier
between the goods that are being transported and a heat source.
In cold journey
conditions, they can keep goods warm, whilst in warm conditions they can keep them cool.
For a thermal pallet cover to be effective, it must be placed tightly over palletised cargo. This cargo can take many forms, but thermal pallet covers are often used to transport temperature-sensitive cargo within the cold chain logistics process, such as fresh produce, meat, dairy, seafood, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, flowers, and wine.
Insulated thermal pallet covers work incredibly effectively as a barrier against both heat radiation and conduction. They achieve this by creating a barrier between the goods and the outside world that traps cold or heat inside, depending on the temperature of the goods that are being transported. Insulated pallet covers reflect thermal radiation, ensuring that when pallets are exposed to heat sources, such as either direct sunlight or the hot metal walls of a shipping container or shipping truck, the goods inside which must be temperature controlled are not spoiled.
Different thermal pallet covers will work in different ways and have different levels of efficiency. Insulated pallet covers that boast an outer membrane made with pure aluminium are designed to reflect more thermal radiation than those manufactured with other materials. Polythene, for example, is often used as a form of thermal pallet protection, but will not work as efficiently.
Some thermal pallet covers are manufactured with an insulating layer of foam or air bubbles in between the shiny aluminium layers. This is designed to offer greater protection for goods that are entirely dependent on robust temperature control, such as chilled or refrigerated goods. These will spoil if they are not transported at lower temperatures, and therefore the quality of the insulation layer is important.
Many individuals involved in cold chain shipping don’t realise they need thermal pallet covers, because they are already shipping in refrigerated containers. But there are often long periods when products are out of these containers, and at this point, they are at risk of spoiling. Products are often exposed to high temperatures during the loading and unloading process, sitting on docks for extended periods. Thermal pallet covers can minimise the risk of damage at this stage.
Understanding Insulated Pallet Covers
There are many benefits of using insulated pallet covers as part of your cold chain transportation process. Thermal pallet covers offer:
- Protection from extreme temperatures
- Protection from damage in transit
- A cost-effective solution to cold chain transportation
- Reduce levels of loss and theft during the transportation process
- A lightweight and easy-to-use solution that can be secured in place in less than 2 minutes
How To Choose The Right Thermal Pallet Covers
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to choosing insulated pallet covers for your shipments. Different types of covers, and different brands of pallet covers, will work in different ways and will offer varying degrees of insulating effect. The right insulated pallet cover for you is likely to be determined by the type of shipping and the products that you are shipping.
For this reason, it is important to know what type of goods you are shipping before you choose insulated pallet covers. If you are shipping dairy products, for example, then they need to be shipped at temperatures that cannot exceed 2°C-5°C. Wine may also be a drinkable liquid, but its transportation is quite different. It can be shipped at temperatures up to 20°C without spoiling or ruining its integrity. The more information you have about your shipments, the more informed your decisions can be.
Some of the insulated pallet covers available under the TLX Cargo umbrella include:
| TLX4. For relatively short journeys, this insulated pallet cover will offer 4 hours of thermal protection. This cover is just 1mm thick, meaning it is light and flexible, and can be fitted onto a palette in two minutes or less. What makes TLX4 unique is that it reflects 97% of thermal radiation. It is also fully waterproof. |  |
| TLX Fibre-Flex. This long-lasting product is designed for ocean freight, and the lengthy journeys involved. TLX Fibre-Flex is lightweight and thin, ensuring that it remains flexible when it is frozen. This also helps to ensure that it is both easy to fit and easy to remove. At 3mm thick, however, it is one of the thickest thermal pallet covers available. Fibre-Flex can be used for temperatures from either 15-25 degrees Celsius or 2-8 degrees Celsius. |  |
| TLX PCM. For longer and more robust protection, TLX PCM offers thermal insulation for up to 7 hours. Each thermal pallet cover weighs just 2.85kg and can be used for 2-8°C and 15-25°C shipments. These insulated pallet covers are best used for pharmaceutical, chemical, perishable and healthcare shipments. |  |
| TLX Pallet Wrap. For irregular and non-standard pallets, TLX pallet wrap can be utilised. It is a high-performance thin reflective insulation wrap composed of 11 unique layers which are 30mm thick. The benefits of TLX pallet wrap are that it is lightweight, easy to handle, and the ideal choice for perishable items. |  |
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