History
The American inventor Oliver Evans, acclaimed as the "father of refrigeration," invented the vapor-compression refrigeration machine in 1805. Heat would be removed from the environment by recycling vaporized refrigerant, where it would move through a compressor and condenser and would eventually revert back to a liquid form in order to repeat the refrigeration process over again. However, no such refrigeration unit was built by Evans.
In 1834, Jacob Perkins modified Evans' original design, building the world's first refrigerator and filing the first legal patent for refrigeration using vapor-compression. John Gorrie, an American doctor from Florida, invented the first mechanical refrigeration unit in 1841, based on Evans' original invention to make ice in order to cool the air for yellow fever patients. Gorrie's mechanical refrigeration unit was issued a patent in 1851. In 1853, Alexander C. Twining of Cleveland, Ohio patented an early vapor-compression refrigerator that was fully capable of producing a ton of ice per day.
In 1856, James Harrison, an immigrant from Scotland living in Australia, developed an ice making machine using ammonia and an ether compressor. It was used in the brewing and meat packing industries of Geelong, Victoria. Ferdinand Carré of France developed a somewhat more complex system in 1859. Unlike earlier compression-compression machines, which used air as a coolant, Carré's equipment contained rapidly expanding ammonia.
Read more about this topic: Vapor-compression Refrigeration
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