Refrigeration process

At the end of 3rd century B.C. Philon of Byzantium invented an apparatus for measuring temperature. Water was the first refrigerant to be used in a continuous refrigeration system by William Cullen (1710-1790) in 1755.

Oliver Evans (1755-1819) proposed the use of a volatile fluid in a closed cycle to produce ice from water. He described a practical system that uses ethyl ether as the refrigerant. Early commercial refrigerating machines developed by James Harrison (1816-1893) also used ethyl ether as refrigerant.

In 1834, an American expatriate to Great Britain, Jacob Perkins, built the first working vapor-compression refrigeration system in the world. It was a closed-cycle device that could operate continuously. A similar attempt was made in 1842, by American physician, John Gorrie, who built a working prototype, but it was a commercial failure. A patent for use of a commercial refrigeration process for first was registered in 1842.

The first mechanical refrigerators for the production of ice appeared around the year 1860. In 1866, the American T.S.C. Lowe (1832-1913) introduced carbon dioxidecompressor. However, it enjoyed commercial success only in 1880s due largely to the efforts of German scientists Franz Windhausen (1829-1904) and Carl von Linde (1842-1934).

William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) in 1852 introduced the thermodynamic scale of temperature and described the concept of a “heat pump,” for heating a house. In 1880 the first ammonia compressors and insulated cold stores were put into use in the USA.

Electricity began to play a part at the beginning of this century and mechanical refrigeration plants became common in some fields: e.g. breweries, slaughter-houses, fishery, ice production, for example.

The use of refrigeration to reduce the temperature of food below the point of ice crystallization was developed by Birdseye in the 1920s.

In 1918, Kelvinator Company introduced the first refrigerator with any type of automatic control. The absorption refrigerator was invented by Baltzar von Platen and Carl Munters from Sweden in 1922. It became a worldwide success and was commercialized by Electrolux.

After the Second World War the development of small hermetic refrigeration compressors evolved and refrigerators and freezers began to take their place in the home.
Refrigeration process