Icemaker
This may be the reason why the history of the icemakers begins with Oliver Evans, an American inventor who designed the first refrigeration machine in 1805.
In 1834, Jacob Perkins built the first practical refrigerating machine using ether in a vapor compression cycle.
[2] In 1844, an American physician, John Gorrie, built a refrigerator based on Oliver Evans' design to make ice to cool the air for his yellow fever patients.
Unfortunately for John Gorrie, his plans of manufacturing and selling his invention were met with fierce opposition by Frederic Tudor, the Boston “Ice King”.
By then, Tudor was shipping ice from the United States to Cuba and was planning to expand his business to India.
[4] After struggling with Tudor's campaign and the death of his partner, John Gorrie also died, bankrupt and humiliated.
In 1854, James Harrison successfully built a refrigeration machine capable of producing 3,000 kilograms of ice per day and in 1855 he received an icemaker patent in Australia, similar to that of Alexander Twining.
Today he is credited for his major contributions to the development of modern cooling system designs and functionality strategies.
In 1867, Andrew Muhl built an ice-making machine in San Antonio, Texas, to help service the expanding beef industry before moving it to Waco in 1871.
[6] In 1873, the patent for this machine was contracted by the Columbus Iron Works,[7] which produced the world's first commercial icemakers.
[9] The ice machines from the late 1800s to the 1930s used toxic gases such as ammonia (NH3), methyl chloride (CH3Cl), and sulfur dioxide (SO2) as refrigerants.
In the quest of replacing dangerous refrigerants – especially methyl chloride – collaborative research ensued in American corporations.
In 1930, General Motors and DuPont formed Kinetic Chemicals to produce Freon, which would later become the standard for almost all consumer and industrial refrigerators.
The original "Freon" produced at this time was chlorofluorocarbon, a moderately toxic gas causing ozone depletion.
Finally, the timer runs a rotating arm that scoops the ice cubes out of the mold and into a bin, and the cycle repeats.
Flake ice can lower the temperature of cleaning water and sea products, therefore it resists the growth of bacteria and keeps the seafood fresh.
Because of its large contact and less damage with refrigerated materials, it is also applied in vegetable, fruit, and meat storing and transporting.
In most cases of biosynthesis and chemosynthesis, flake ice is used to control the reaction rate and maintain the liveness.
Flake ice is also used for artificial snow, so it is widely applied in ski resorts and entertainment parks.
Rotary compressors, mainly used in air conditioning equipment, have a very low refrigerating effect, normally not exceeding 5 kW.
As of 2019 there were approximately 2 billion household refrigerators and over 40 million square meters of cold-storage facilities operating worldwide.
[22] This data supports the assertion that refrigeration has global applications with positive impact upon the economy, technology, social dynamics, health, and the environment.
Refrigeration is used in biodiversity maintenance based on the cryopreservation of genetic resources (cells; tissues; and organs of plants, animals and micro-organisms).
Refrigeration enables the liquefaction of CO2 for underground storage, allowing the potential separation of CO2 from fossil fuels in power stations via cryogenic technology.
Just like ammonia, it has fallen in almost complete disuse due to its low critical point and its high operating pressure.
Carbon dioxide has zero impact on the ozone layer and the global warming effects of the quantities required for use as a refrigerant are also negligible.
Hydrocarbons are natural products with high thermodynamic properties, zero ozone-layer impact and negligible global warming effects.
In October 2016, negotiators from 197 countries have reached an agreement to reduce emissions of chemical refrigerants that contribute to global warming, re-emphasizing the historical importance of the Montreal Protocol and aiming to increase its impact upon the use greenhouse gases besides the efforts made to reduce ozone depletion caused by the chlorofluorocarbons.
The agreement, closed at a United Nations meeting in Kigali, Rwanda set the terms for a rapid phasedown of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs)[27] which would be stopped from manufacturing altogether and have their uses reduced over time.
The UN agenda and the Rwanda deal aims to find a new generation of refrigerants to be safe from both an ozone layer and greenhouse effect point of view.
