History of Refrigeration

Refrigeration, as a tool, has been used for thousands of years. Early civilizations noticed that cold food remained fresh longer, and would use running water to lower its temperature. The Roman and Greek cultures dug snow pits that were insulated with grass or leaves to cool their beverages. Home refrigeration was attempted by hanging wet mats in doors and windows, as a crude evaporative cooler. Ancient people of wealth even imported snow and ice in order to cool their food. The advancement of refrigeration technology stopped at ice harvesting, and remained there until the 1800s.

Frederic Tudor, in 1830, revitalized the refrigeration technological advance through his adaptation of ice harvesting to make commercial uses possible. [i] This usage of natural ice was soon outdated by the inventions of John Gorrie and Ferdinand Carre, who created systems capable of refrigerating water in order to artificially produce ice.[ii] These systems used the absorption cycle, instead of the vapor-compression cycle that is mainly used today. The absorption cycle used a secondary substance to absorb the refrigerant, and then evaporating the refrigerant, transferring the heat to the environment. This had the dual effect of allowing early settlers to expand farther in America, and allowed the beef industry to expand. Refrigerated railroad cars were also made possible by this development, allowing large cities to develop in areas that would have been previously uninhabitable. Carre’s system, as a side note, used ammonia as the refrigerant.

Refrigeration technologies continued to advance, moving from Carnot and the first vapor-compression cycle in the 1830’s,[iii] to the beginning of the 20th century, where it completely replaced natural ice with ammonia refrigeration. Both World War I and World War II placed great emphasis on food storage refrigeration. Home refrigeration units became available in 1911, developing both gas powered and electric powered refrigerators. The first synthetic refrigerant developed was Freon in 1930, allowing cheaper and smaller refrigerators. As refrigeration became better, cheaper and available, more and more uses emerged, such as air conditioning, liquefying gases in manufacturing, use in oil refineries to maintain certain processes at specific temperatures, metalworking, supercomputer cooling, and large machinery. Relatively new developments in refrigeration tend to be more focused on computerizing refrigeration systems, making systems more automated.

[i] Krasner-Khait, Barbara. “The Impact of Refrigeration.” The Impact of Refrigeration. History Magazine, n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2016

[ii] “Why Join ASHRAE.” History of Refrigeration Timeline. ASHRAE, n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2016

[iii] Townsend, Ben. “Sadi Carnot – Biography.” Sadi Carnot – Biography. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2016