History of Refrigeration
BUCUN BENGKEL : Modern refrigeration
has many applications. The first, and probably still the most important, is the
preservation of food.
Most foods kept at
room temperature spoil rapidly. This is due to the rapid growth of bacteria. At
common refrigeration temperatures of about 40°F (4°C), bacteria grow quite slowly.
Food at this temperature will keep much longer. Refrigeration preserves food by
keeping it cold.
Other important uses
of refrigeration include air conditioning, beverage cooling, and humidity
control. Many manufacturing processes also use refrigeration.
The refrigeration
industry became important commercially during the 18th century. Early
refrigeration was obtained by use of ice. Ice from lakes and Ponds was cut and
stored in the winter in insulated storerooms for summer use.
The use of natural
ice required building insulated containers or iceboxes for stores, restaurants,
and homes. These units appeared on a large scale during the 19th
century.
Ice was first made artificially
about 1820 as an experiment. Not until 1834 did artificial ice manufacturing
Become practical. Jacob
Perkins, an American engineer, invented the machine which led to our modern
compression systems. Michael Faraday discovered the principles for the
absorption type of refrigeration as early as 1824. It was not actually built
until 1855 by a German engineer.
Little artificial ice
was produced until shortly after 1890. During 1890, a warm winter resulted in a
shortage of natural ice. This helped start the mechanical ice making industry.
Mechanical domestic
refrigeration first appeared about 1910. J.M. Larsen produced a manually
operated household machine in 1913. By 1918 Kelvinator produced the first
automatic refrigerator for the American market. They sold 67 machines that
year. Now millions of units are sold each year. The first of the sealed or
"hermetic" automatic refrigeration units was introduced by General
Electric in 1928. It was named the Monitor Top.
Beginning with 1920, domestic
refrigeration became an important industry. The Electrolux, which was an
automatic domestic absorption unit, appeared in 1927.
Fast freezing to
preserve food for extended periods was developed about 1923. This marked the
beginning of the modem frozen foods industry. Automatic refrigeration units,
for the comfort cooling part of air conditioning, appeared in 1927.
Mechanical refrigeration
systems were first connected to heating plants to provide summer cooling in the
late 1920s. By 1940, practically all domestic units were of the hermetic type.
Commercial units had also been successfully made and used. These units were
capable of refrigerating large commercial food storage systems. They could
provide comfort cooling of large auditoriums. They could also produce low
temperatures used in many commercial operations.
In 1935, Frederick
McKinley Jones produced an automatic refrigeration system for long-haul trucks.
From a small, slow start in the late 1930s, air conditioning of automobiles has
also grown rapidly.
Starting in the
1960s, the home air conditioning market experienced tremendous growth. Energy was
inexpensive and therefore, simple air conditioning became common in many homes.
Solar energy and other alternative energy sources became additional sources for
powering heating and cooling systems.
Due to a tremendous
growth in technology, by 1990 all areas of refrigeration and air conditioning
were using microprocessor control systems. The purpose of these systems is to
increase reliability and efficiency of the heating and cooling units. By 1990,
the automobile air conditioner became as standard as the automatic
transmission.
source : Andrew, Carl, Alfred; 2004; Modern Refrigeration and Air Conditioning, The Goodheart-Willcox Company,inc.; Tinley
Park, Illinois
