The refrigerator is one of the
key inventors of the twentieth century.
Its use in food storage is vital, slowing the development of bacteria
and keeping food edible for much much longer.
Before its invention, the only source of cold was blocks of ice, which
could be bought in some placed and used with cool-box. Most homes had no means of chilling food.
Baltzar Von Platen (1898-1984)
and Carl Munters (1897-1989) were students at the Royal Institute of Technology
in Stockholm, Sweden, when they collectively invented and developed the gas
absorption refrigerator. Unlike modern
fridges, the invention did not require electricity driving a compressor, but
relied instead upon an ingenious process whereby a refrigerant gas is put
through a series of changes of state. In
Von Platen’s process, ammonia mixed with water is heated until the ammonia
evaporates. This gas is then passed
through a condenser, which conducts heat away from the pure ammonia until it
becomes liquid at much lower temperature than when mixed with water. This liquid is then passed through brine and
cools it, which in turn chills the unit.
The ammonia is then returned to a gas and reabsorbed into water so that
the process can begin again.
The gas absorption refrigerator
went into production in 1923 by AB Artic (later purchased by Electrolux), but
it never truly caught on. The electric
refrigerator, developed at the same time gained much more investment and
advertising and soon came to dominate the market. By the 1930s, the gas absorption refrigerator
had ceased to be produced.
A “Monitor Top” lectric
compression domestic refrigerator made by Genral Electic in 1934.
