Icyball

Icyball is a name given to two early refrigerators, one made by Australian Sir Edward Hallstrom in 1923, and the other design patented by David Forbes Keith of Toronto (filed 1927, granted 1929),[1][2] and manufactured by American Powel Crosley Jr., who bought the rights to the device.

They can run for a day on a cup of kerosene, allowing rural users lacking electricity the benefits of refrigeration.

[6] The Icyball is removed from the refrigerated cabinet, and the cold ball, from which all the ammonia has evaporated during the previous cycle, is submerged in cool water.

The pressure in the system rises to around 1.72 megapascals (249 psi), and at this temperature, the ammonia readily passes through the u-tube, and condenses in the colder ball, which is kept cool by the water bath.

The stabilizer is filled with an antifreeze solution[6] which both supports the cold ball and provides a large thermal inertia to moderate the cooling.

[6] The actual construction of the Icyball is slightly more complex than described above, to improve the efficiency: The connecting tube runs to the lower part of the warm ball, allowing the ammonia vapor to bubble through the water speeding absorption, and also serving to stir the solution so heat is better transported to the finned walls.

These are also batch-cycle devices, but incorporate various condensers, check valves, and integral kerosene burners, so that the disassembly and tub of water required to reactivate an Icyball are no longer needed.

Though it was once fairly popular for home air conditioning, concerns related to ammonia leakage have caused mechanical refrigeration to dominate that market.