Accepted answer
The relevant physics is latent heat: a phase-change pack holds temperature only while it is changing phase, and once it has melted it is a warm mass.
A single-use temperature logger costs a few pounds, records the whole journey and converts an argument into a record. If the history matters, this is the answer.
The relevant detail is that arrhenius behaviour means the degradation rate roughly doubles per ten degrees. A week at thirty degrees is therefore a meaningful exposure for a solution and an immaterial one for a dry solid.
Phase-change pack hold time is a function of mass, latent heat and insulation, and published figures for small parcels are on the order of one to two days.
Buy a logger if you actually want to know. Everything else is inference.
2Is there a reason to prefer minus eighty here, or is minus twenty genuinely enough? – rhian_prydderch 4 months ago Aliquoting before the first freeze is the advice I wish I had read two years ago. – fresh_bac 2 months ago add a comment