When was refrigeration first invented

It works because bacteria growth is slowed at lower temperatures. Methods for preserving food by cooling have been around for thousands of years, but the modern refrigerator is a recent invention.

Today, the demand for refrigeration and air conditioning represent nearly 20 percent of energy consumption worldwide, according to a article in the International Journal of Refrigeration. The Chinese cut and stored ice around B. Other civilizations, such as the Greeks, Romans and Hebrews, stored snow in pits and covered them with various insulating materials, according to History magazine.

In various places in Europe during the 17th century, saltpeter dissolved in water was found to create cooling conditions and was used to create ice. In the 18th century, Europeans collected ice in the winter, salted it, wrapped it in flannel, and stored it underground where it kept for months. When ice wasn't available or practical, people used cool cellars or placed goods underwater, according to History magazine. Others built their own ice boxes, according to Keep It Cool.

Wooden boxes were lined with tin or zinc and an insulating material such as cork, sawdust, or seaweed and filled with snow or ice. The concept of mechanical refrigeration began when William Cullen, a Scottish doctor, observed that evaporation had a cooling effect in the s.

He demonstrated his ideas in by evaporating ethyl ether in a vacuum, according to Peak Mechanical Partnership , a plumbing and heating company based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Oliver Evans, an American inventor, designed but did not build a refrigeration machine that used vapor instead of liquid in Some machines now use alternative refrigerants such as HFOyf that are not as harmful to the atmosphere.

There even exist refrigerators that operate using solar, magnetic, and acoustic energy. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data.

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Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. Ether boiled and absorbed the heat from the surrounding air.

This resulted in a small amount of ice, but machine was not practical at that time. Benjamin Franklin and John Hadley experimented with refrigeration in They experimented with the bulb of a mercury thermometer and concluded that the evaporation of liquids such as alcohol and ether could be used to lower the temperature of an object below the freezing point of water. American Oliver Evans designed refrigerator in which was based on a closed cycle of compressed ether.

Design stayed in prototype stage. John Gorrie built a similar machine in and it used compressed air. Alexander Twinning began selling a refrigeration machine based on this principle in while Australian James Harrison enlarged this design and adapted it for meat-packing and beer-making industries.

Synthetic alternatives were developed during the s, one of them was Freon. It has low boiling point, surface tension, and viscosity which makes it an ideal refrigerant. In the s, it was found that Freon poses problem for the environment.

Even as a teenager, Perkins displayed remarkable ingenuity, inventing a way to plate shoe buckles at the age of The precocious inventor saw the promise in Evans' work on refrigeration, and he took Evans' design and began modifying it, receiving a patent on his own design in [source: The Heritage Group ].

Perkins then persuaded a man named John Hague to construct the machine, and the refrigerator was born. Created more as an experiment than something fit for commercialization, Perkins' product certainly had room for improvement. For instance, since Freon wouldn't be invented for another century or so, early refrigerators like Perkins' used potentially dangerous substances such as ether and ammonia to function. Still, his device did manage to produce a small quantity of ice by drawing on the same fundamental principles used in modern refrigeration.

Following Perkins' success in creating a functioning fridge, other inventors moved the device rapidly toward commercialization. As for Perkins, he retired soon after inventing the refrigerator and died in , never witnessing the tremendous impact his invention had on modern life [source: Heritage Group ].

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