essay about the importance of refrigerator

History of the Refrigerator & Refrigerator Impact on Society

Importance of refrigerator: essay introduction, refrigerator impact on society: discussion, conclusion of refrigerator in our daily life essay, works cited.

The refrigerator is one of the most significant inventions as it has changed the entire world. Refrigerators are used everywhere: in houses, cars, laboratories, hospitals, and so forth. However, the importance of this invention is underestimated by the majority of people. The main goal of this paper is to argue that the impact that the invention of the refrigerator had on people’s lives is crucial as this appliance has become an essential element in multiple human activities.

To begin with, it is necessary to discuss the history of the refrigerator briefly. In the past, people used different methods to keep food (“The History of the Refrigerator”). For example, some kept provisions in cool streams. Other people used to snow or ice. Caves and cellars were other popular approaches. However, the absence of a convenient device for keeping provisions contributed to the invention of salted, smoked, and dried food. In the eighteenth century, people collected ice when it was cold and created icehouses. They wrapped chunks of ice in fabric and put them underground, so they remained frozen until summer (“The History of the Refrigerator”). Ice was a product for sale. For example, it was distributed in the United States during the Civil War.

One of the first scientists whose inventions were used to design the refrigerator was Dr. William Cullen. His studies described the evaporation of liquids (“William Cullen”). Other important figures were Michael Faraday, who performed experiments to liquefy ammonia, and Dr. Goorie, who created the first device that made ice and cooled the air for his patients. A compression system that is used in modern refrigerators is based on ideas developed by Faraday (Williams). The invention of refrigeration has drastically changed the entire world. Its impact on the economy, science, and culture is remarkable. Refrigeration allowed packing meat, fish, and dairy products. An American creator Sutherland designed the refrigerated railroad car in the mid-nineteenth century (Kalscheuer).

Due to his invention, such products could be delivered to remote villages and cities. This invention let people establish cities in Western territories. The fast-developing food distribution industry resulted in market expansion and improved the health of citizens (Craig and Matthew 85). Subsequently, such cars began to transport fresh fruits, vegetables, and berries. However, substances used in refrigerators were dangerous for people (“Sulphur Dioxide Refrigerants”). A toxic effect was so strong that it caused deaths. Afterward, refrigerator manufacturers began to use Freon, which was also banned in the mid-twentieth century as it damaged the ozone layer (Alter). Freon has been replaced with modern refrigerants that are safe for people and the environment.

The household refrigerator was another important accomplishment. Engineers made this device reliable, convenient, and not expensive. It has become one of the main appliances in every house and apartment. This device altered the way people ate, which changed the entire household. They could store provision at houses for a long time, and they did not need to buy ice anymore. This was one of the most significant changes affecting the way of life that occurred in the twentieth century. However, since then, the way how people treat and consume food has not changed much.

Refrigeration changed all aspects of modern life. In medicine, refrigerators are used to keep different materials, such as medications and vaccines. There are certain risks if some drugs are not stored in a cool environment. They are used to store blood products. A medical refrigerator is an important piece of equipment in laboratories as well. Laboratory refrigerators are necessary to cool different samples. Therefore, many scientific studies would be impossible to conduct if the refrigerator was not invented.

In conclusion, the invention of the refrigerator had a global impact. It changed the way of life as many traditions disappeared. The refrigerator has also improved the quality of life because meat, fish, and fresh fruits now can be transported to almost any place. Therefore, refrigeration is one of the most important inventions that have become an integral part of everyday life.

Alter, Lloyd. “Global Treaty Signed to Ban HFC Refrigerants.” TreeHugger , Web.

Craig, Lee A., and Matthew T. Holt. “The Impact of Mechanical Refrigeration on Market Integration: The US Egg Market, 1890–1911.” Explorations in Economic History , vol. 66, 2017, pp. 85-105.

Kalscheuer, Patrick. “A Brief History of the Refrigerated Railroad Car.” CreativeZest , Web.

“Sulphur Dioxide Refrigerants.” Ref-Wiki .

“The History of the Refrigerator.” Sandvik , Web.

“William Cullen.” University of Glasgow .

Williams, Pearce. “Michael Faraday.” Encyclopedia Britannica .

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What Are the Benefits of a Refrigerator?

In the 1920s, you could buy a Model T Ford for just $260, but to buy the first-ever Frigidaire home refrigerator would cost you around $750 — that's around $9,700 today. But the benefits of refrigeration were a game-changer for a family's ability to keep food safe for consumption for a longer period. So much so, in fact, that not only do 99.9 percent of American households have fridges today, but 23 percent of households have two refrigerators or more.

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Why We Love Our Fridges

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The importance of refrigerators may be taken for granted in North America, but elsewhere in the world, there are still those who've never had the privilege of cracking a cool can of soda from their kitchen fridge. Only 75 percent of the world's homes have fridges today. In 2015, BBC ran a story in which an Indian man named Santosh Chowdhury became the first-ever owner of a fridge in his village of 200, and the implications of buying one were life-changing. Now his wife could make extra food and have leftovers, reducing the amount of time spent on household chores for people who worked six days a week.

Visit places like Bangkok and you'll see couriers delivering blocks of ice to street hawkers all day long for preservation of their foods. The practice of ice delivery on a daily basis was once the norm for many households a century ago.

But heat can deteriorate far more than just a slab of beef. The uses of a refrigerator go far beyond just keeping the yogurt chilled and butter firm. It can be critical to keeping life-saving prescriptions cold in places like Chowdhury's village or even down on the bayou in Louisiana. Look into people's fridges and you'll often find batteries, since staying cold makes batteries stay packed with power for longer.

Benefits of Refrigerators

Any old refrigerator can make a world of difference in your diet if it simply keeps food in the healthy 32- to 40-degree Fahrenheit range. It means being able to safely consume meat beyond a few hours from purchase. It allows for keeping fresh food fresh or even enjoying leftovers. With longer safe-consumption periods, it's better for your home's budget as well as the planet's health.

The longer food lasts, the more chances it will be consumed. Good news, when food waste is one of the worst offenders for greenhouse gases, since the methane produced when food decomposes is 28 times more impactful on the climate than carbon dioxide is.

Unfortunately, the long shelf life can also encourage people to buy more than they need or can consume.

Customizing Your Refrigerator

The reason food gets wasted sometimes isn't because people are always irresponsible. Sometimes it comes down to organizational challenges. They open the door and there's all this stuff and it can be overwhelming for some. Finding a fridge that's best suited to your needs is easier than ever, so make sure the configuration works for how you cook and what you eat.

Smart door shelving might be necessary if you're decked out with every sauce from Peri-Peri to mayo. Maybe you're a wine fanatic and a wine rack shelf will keep you sane. Drawer-style freezers can be terrific for families that need to stock up or they have kids needing to access frozen snacks after school.

Consider what style doors you like best, because it really changes the function of your fridge. Are you into raw food and fresh veggies? The crispers should be your biggest consideration — are they large enough, and how easily do they open? On it goes.

Keeping Cool

There are more choices than ever before with fridges, and that's possibly the best benefit ever in refrigeration. Today, it's possible to not just keep your food cold, but to do so in a way that makes sense to how you cook, the way you like to organize things, how you live and even just your aesthetic.

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The Purpose of Refrigeration

The fundamental reason for having a refrigerator is to keep food cold. Cold temperatures help food stay fresh longer. The basic idea behind refrigeration is to slow down the activity of bacteria (which all food contains) so that it takes longer for the bacteria to spoil the food.

For example, bacteria will spoil milk in two or three hours if the milk is left out on the kitchen counter at room temperature. However, by reducing the temperature of the milk, it will stay fresh for a week or two -- the cold temperature inside the refrigerator decreases the activity of the bacteria that much. By freezing the milk you can stop the bacteria altogether, and the milk can last for months (until effects like freezer burn begin to spoil the milk in non-bacterial ways).

Refrigeration and freezing are two of the most common forms of food preservation used today. For more information on other ways to preserve food, see How Food Preservation Works .

Please copy/paste the following text to properly cite this HowStuffWorks.com article:

StarTribune

How refrigeration changed our lives.

Never mind the cold outdoors, it's the temperature inside that makes a difference when we're cooking — inside the refrigerator, that is (which optimally will be set at 39 degrees).

That chilly spot that keeps our perishables at their best for mealtime seems to disappear into the kitchen woodwork unless it's noisy or not working.

That was the case for me until I was without refrigeration for six weeks last summer. After a move to a new home, I took my time exploring options (because how often do I buy a refrigerator?).

It took only a few frozen dinners, grabbed from the corner store nightly, before my inner lightbulb switched on: Where would we be without refrigeration? And then, the more profound realization thwacked me on the head: Refrigeration changed the world.

And it's not only because it kept our food cold.

As for the use of ice, that dates back to at least 1100 B.C., based on underground icehouses in China. Jonathan Rees, in "Refrigeration Nation," notes that donkeys carted ice from the Alps to the Roman emperors. Snow was shipped by boat to Istanbul in the 16th century. For the common people at home, depending on where they lived, they may have harvested ice from lakes and streams or frozen it in pans when the temperature dropped.

But our story really begins in the 19th century, when ice was first cut from lakes in New England for commercial use, and transported as far away as India.

It wasn't enough to get ice from here to there, remarkable as that was. Those on the other end had to know what to do with it. Rees tells the story of one of the first shipments of ice to Martinique, where a customer brought a chunk home and left it outdoors in the sun. Talk about educating your customers.

And that's really the story of refrigeration: Many stops along the "chain of cold" had to handle chilled food correctly for the process to be viable.

Once there was a reliable source of year-round ice, home cooks depended on the icebox to keep perishable foods from spoiling too fast. Ice was delivered often, but the temperatures within the icebox were unpredictable at best, and were never as cold as our refrigerators are today.

The appliance we have come to depend on didn't arrive on the scene in many homes until 1925 to 1945, a remarkably short span for an innovation of that sort to be accepted. More than 80 percent of U.S. kitchens had one by the end of World War II.

The early refrigerator was considerably smaller (holding 8.6 cubic feet of food; today it's 18 to 26 cubic feet) and without a freezer compartment, though the space by the compressor was cold enough to produce ice. By the '50s, virtually every American home had one.

Combination freezer-refrigerators were the natural next step, and some cooks rented freezer locker space in warehouses. The stand-alone chest freezer didn't appear until the refrigerator market was saturated.

The novelty of the cold contraption took up an early TV episode of "I Love Lucy" when Lucy and Ethel buy an inexpensive meat freezer and fill it with expensive meat. Craziness ensues and, of course, Lucy gets locked in the freezer.

Not until after World War II did frozen food find a place in the home kitchen, though it had been around since the 1920s when Clarence Birds­eye realized that freezing fish fast meant its texture wouldn't change. He later applied that concept to fruits and vegetables. But the product needed enough consumers with freezers before there was a sizable market for it.

Refrigeration changed our lives in ways big and small.

• Until then, dinner tables relied primarily on local foods, though dry goods (flour, tea, spices) had been shipped for years. Once refrigerated railroad cars and trucks were available, perishable food could be transported across the nation and beyond. Two Minnesotans — Frederick McKinley Jones and Joseph Numero, who went on to form Thermo King Corp. — began developing refrigeration units in the late 1930s that revolutionized the movement of perishable food. California iceberg lettuce found a place on the Minnesota table.

• Transportation of food added a great variety to the American diet, and that included greater choices for the poor.

• Food prices dropped due to availability, which resulted in improved nutrition for people of all classes.

• Mealtime options expanded beyond seasonal foods. Fresh food began to be available year-round.

• Small markets began to be edged out by supermarkets, which could offer food in larger quantities.

• Refrigerated cases in supermarkets meant you could buy pre-cut meat and no longer had to go to a butcher's shop.

• There was less food waste because spoilage was under better control.

• Mealtime was more convenient for the cook, with less shopping necessary.

• The prevention of spoilage was what prompted refrigeration, but today it's recognized as an important part of food safety because it suppresses the growth of food-borne bacteria, says Craig Hedberg, a professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota.

And along the way, our palates evolved as they always do when new flavors and textures are introduced.

"Refrigeration raised the expectations of what food would taste like. People no longer expected that food would taste old, but would taste fresh," said Tracey Deutsch, an associate professor of history at the University of Minnesota.

Dinner would never be the same.

Follow Lee Svitak Dean on Twitter: @StribTaste

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Your Fridge Is the Most Important Invention in the History of Food

The Royal Society has decided that of all the things we’ve invented surrounding food, the refrigerator is the most important

Rose Eveleth

Contributor

Behold, the most important food invention ever. Image: tychay

Earlier this year, the Royal Society set out to decide what the most important invention in the history of food was . The committee started with a list of 100 things and whittled it down to just 20. That list was then voted on by the fellows, along with food and drink industry experts. There were four criteria: accessibility, productivity, aesthetics, and health.

And the winner? Drumroll please: the refrigerator. Eeking out canning, irrigation and the knife, the refrigerator has spent the last 100 years keeping your food cold. The first two home refrigerators were reportedly revealed in Fort Wayne, Indiana, by General Electric. Several years before that, in 1889 and 1890, the winters were so warm that there was a shortage of natural ice in the United States, prompting inventors to look for ways to take commercial refrigeration into the home.

Of course, refrigeration is far older than the invention of the home refrigerator. The Chinese cut and stored ice as far back as 1,000 B.C. Later on, natural ice was harvested and shipped around—the ice trade was one of the first things to go during the Civil War. Boston supplied the south with a large amount of its ice. These days, nearly every American home (99.5 percent) has a refrigerator.

If this were the Olympics, we’d be comparing country medal count. So the Royal Society has a breakdown :

The top three result from Anglo-French scientific successes in the 18 th and 19 th centuries:  Artificial refrigeration was first demonstrated in Glasgow in 1748 and then produced commercially in 1805; the first pasteurisation test was completed in France in 1862; and a British merchant patented the tin can in 1810 (although a year earlier a Frenchman applied a similar process with glass jars and cork).

Here are the Top 20:

1. Refrigeration 2. Pasteurisation / sterilisation 3. Canning 4. The oven 5. Irrigation 6. Threshing  machine/combine harvester 7. Baking 8. Selective breeding / strains 9. Grinding / milling 10. The plough 11. Fermentation 12. The fishing net 13. Crop rotation 14. The pot 15. The knife 16. Eating utensils 17. The cork 18. The barrel 19. The microwave oven 20. Frying

More from Smithsonian.com:

Inventing Your Way to a Better Champagne Experience Did New Orleans Invent the Cocktail?

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Rose Eveleth | | READ MORE

Rose Eveleth was a writer for Smart News and a producer/designer/ science writer/ animator based in Brooklyn. Her work has appeared in the New York Times , Scientific American , Story Collider , TED-Ed and OnEarth .

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Best Technology Essay Examples

The technological and social importance of refrigerators.

976 words | 4 page(s)

Before the invention of the modern refrigerator, iceboxes were used. Before those, people who wanted to preserve their food did so with spices, salt, and methods of drying. As time goes on, humanity gets better and better at making sure that an essential life source does not rot before its time. But how did we get to where we are now, rather than being stuck at iceboxes or even over-salting everything in an effort to preserve not only the taste but the edibility? The answer is years in the making.

In approximately 1000 B.C., the Chinese cut and arranged blocks of ice for food preservation. This tactic carried over into other cultures (History of Refrigeration), and it could easily be considered the beginning of what would later become iceboxes. It was not as organized as it would later be, but it was a vast improvement over having to eat food acquired the same day or risk it going bad.

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Even though the icebox was an early form of the refrigerator, a refrigerator and an icebox are not at all the same thing. They serve the same basic purpose, but an icebox keeps the food cool with the ice that lines its walls and a refrigerator does so by a complicated system of pumps and circulating refrigerant (Lu, 2009, p. 4). Some people still refer to refrigerators as iceboxes, but this is likely because of an adherence to tradition, rather than due to some sort of ignorance. Even so, there are “icebox-type” refrigerators in which the design of the machine mimics certain types of iceboxes. These types are the ones in which the ice did not line the box, but was placed at the top due to the buoyancy effect bringing the cool air down to keep the food underneath cool (History of Refrigeration (2), p. 10).

In 1805, Oliver Evans designed a refrigerator that was powered and cooled using vapor rather than liquid, but he never actually constructed in. In 1911, domestic-use mechanical refrigerators became available and by 2005 99.5% of American homes had a refrigerator (History of Refrigeration). This seems like a very high number, but the high cost of a good, reliable refrigerator in our modern age prevents many people from buying one.

This relatively high number’s missing .5% is a problem because refrigerators do not just preserve food and prevent it from rotting; they actually prevent bacterial growth. Some people believe that bacteria is bacteria and that anything that grows on one’s food is “bad” and life-threatening. However, food bacteria is actually more complicated than this.

Pathogenic bacteria and spoilage bacteria are two types of bacteria that can exist and develop on food. Pathogenic bacteria is the type that causes illnesses brought on by eating infected food, and spoilage bacteria is the kind that turns fruits and vegetables visibly rotten, or that makes food develop odd smells or other observable characteristics (Refrigeration and Food Safety, 2010, p. 1). It is possible for food to look, smell, and taste just fine but to be riddled with pathogenic bacteria. Although there are some cases in which expiration dates may be ignored up to a certain point, it is generally a good idea to pay attention to them.

The reason that all of this talk about bacteria is important is because it is important to understand the sorts of things proper refrigeration prevents. Before such conveniences, people either had to buy their food day-by-day or salt it nearly to the point where it was inedible. There were certainly exceptions, such as those in cold climates who were able to bury their food in the snow or in the cold ground (Refrigeration and Food Safety, 2010, p. 1). However, the rapid historical popularity and usefulness of refrigerators was not only good for individual households, it was good for society as a whole. No longer did people have to desperately forage for food every single day; instead, they were able to small-scale stockpile food and to better provide for groups such as families. This difference meant that food producers were able to keep stocks of their products and that they would not be picked clean every single day. Farmers were able to produce large crops with far less worry about huge parts of those crops being discarded. While it is not the focal point of this paper, it is fairly safe to say that the invention of the domestic refrigerator was a huge boost for the economy of both America and the world.

One problem that arises from the prevalence of refrigerators is how many end up in dumps, landfills, and just rotting away wherever they are disposed of. While they do run their course and do not last forever, there are better ways of getting rid of them than simply throwing them away. In 2008, EnergyStar launched their “Recycle My Old Fridge” campaign, which encouraged consumers to recycle their used appliances whether for resale or just for parts. This endeavor helped to reduce greenhouse gas and save energy, money, and natural resources (History of Refrigeration). By 2020, use of household refrigerators will likely be at one hundred percent or more (meaning households may have more than one refrigerator) and recycling efforts will multiply.

So what does the future hold for refrigeration? Some might say that machines will simply get more efficient and even compact, and some might say that nothing will change but the durability; in the relatively short time since the invention of the modern refrigerator, the technology had come an impressive distance. Whichever way refrigeration goes in the future, it is likely that it will become even better at inhibiting bacteria growth and even sanitizing food in a way that does not affect the quality or taste.

• Lesson 1 history of refrigeration [PDF]. (n.d.). Kharagpur: IIT Kharagpur.
• Lu, Y. (2009, April 20). The story of refrigerator and feedback control [Scholarly project]. Retrieved June 16, 2015
• Refrigeration and Food Safety [Pamphlet]. (2010). Washington, DC: USDA.

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The Huge Chill: Why Are American Refrigerators So Big?

From iceboxes to stainless steel behemoths: An Object Lesson.

When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, the loss of electricity throughout the city ruined refrigerators even in neighborhoods barely affected by the storm as maggots infested the rotting food left behind in them by fleeing residents. When evacuees returned, they pushed those refrigerators out to the street in the hope that they would eventually be carried away. Many who returned also wrote long, angry messages about the inadequacy of the government’s response to the disaster on the front of these appliances. American refrigerators are just about the only refrigerators in the world large enough to serve as impromptu billboards. They are also inexpensive enough that citizens of all classes either own or have access to one.

Americans have the biggest refrigerators in the world — 17.5 cubic feet of volume on average. The size of our refrigerators is followed closely by Canadians while the rest of the world lags far behind. Since our refrigerators run day and night, they use more energy than any other household appliance, which means their size has ramifications for the planet’s rate of global warming. However, the enormous popularity of refrigerators in the United States is an indicator of the value of refrigeration both for preserving the food we buy and for the convenience that comes when such huge machines are stocked. The fact that we put perishable food in the refrigerator (even sometimes when it doesn’t belong there) suggests that we still remember refrigeration’s most basic advantage: to prevent food from spoiling before we consume it.

While the usefulness of refrigerators explains their prevalence, it does not explain their size. Most people would agree that fresh food tastes better than anything that's been kept in a refrigerator for even a short amount of time. So why then would anyone want a weeks' worth of perishable food stored in their kitchen at one time? Are Americans slaves to convenience? While our large refrigerators do limit the number of shopping trips we have to take, they also make it possible for us to consume a much greater variety of foods than we ever did without them in our kitchens.

Americans had an early collective desire for cold things. Starting in the early nineteenth century, entrepreneurs cut ice from lakes and streams in New England and elsewhere; then transported it to warmer climes to sell for a profit. While it took the development of mechanical refrigeration later in the century to coin the term, this was the start of the American “natural ice” industry. In order to make such an industry possible, ice merchants had to develop a market, and they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Over the course of the nineteenth century, ice went from a luxury to a necessity for the vast majority of Americans and has remained so ever since. In the early twentieth century, the market for ice developed into a market for large refrigerators to keep all the foodstuffs that ice once preserved. Indeed, a refrigerator is called an icebox because before the development of household refrigeration machines during the 1920s the ice delivery man would drop a block in your “refrigerator” and you would have to try to keep the door closed to prevent it from melting too quickly.

In the course of developing an ice industry, Americans also developed the world’s most efficient cold chains, which now make the stocking of our enormous refrigerators possible. A cold chain is a supply chain that transports and stores temperature sensitive perishable goods. The most visible manifestation of the cold chain is the electric household refrigerator, but that is just its end point. Cold storage warehouses, refrigerated trucks – even the displays in grocery stores – are all part of this poorly understood infrastructure. Perishable goods travel from nearly every point on the globe to nearly every other point, refrigerated at every step of the way.

As cold chains became longer and more complex, having a big refrigerator became increasingly important for taking advantage of the opportunity that this new infrastructure brought. “Proper refrigeration is today an ever increasing necessity,” wrote the Frigidaire refrigerator company in a cookbook it distributed to housewives in 1929:

The rapid growth of population in cities and urban areas has brought dependence upon distant centers of food supply. Meat, for example, travels a great distance before it finally reaches the home. Fresh fruits, vegetables, poultry, milk, butter, eggs and other food products in very few cases enter the home directly from the farm. It is therefore vitally important, with this complex distribution of food, that every home provides proper refrigeration.

Refrigeration in the middle of the cold chain, however, lagged behind the household variety at its end. A real refrigerated railway car (as opposed to one that depended on ice in any fashion), for example, was not perfected until the 1950s. The refrigerated shipping container – which makes it possible for Americans to buy perishables from other hemispheres, let alone continents – is even more recent than that.

Because the average American family goes grocery shopping once a week, a gigantic refrigerator is required to keep all the perishables they acquire on that trip. Household refrigerators differ greatly from country to country because the characteristics that citizens in different countries want in their refrigerators are reflections of their cultures so at this point in history once weekly shopping trips is an almost uniquely American habit. While Americans and Canadians want storage capacity, European countries are generally more concerned with energy efficiency or the cost of their operation. Since Americans have always had abundant natural resources (like food), a large refrigerator has become closely identified around the world with the American way of life.

While large refrigerators are a recent development, ice and refrigeration have actually played an oversized role in American culture for a very long time. Before refrigerators, American iceboxes kept our food cold, at least as long as nobody opened them too often. “Who ever heard of an American without an icebox?,” wrote the British travel writer Winifred James in 1914. “It is his country’s emblem. It asserts his nationality as conclusively as the Stars and Stripes afloat from his roof-tree, besides being much more useful in keeping his butter cool.” “The Hard Times Refrigerator,” sold by the Boston Scientific Refrigerator in 1877 for people who were facing difficult economic circumstances was nothing but a wooden chest big enough to store fifty pounds of ice.

The drawbacks of using ice as a source of cold for food preservation were numerous. Iceboxes had to be scrubbed out regularly. Since ice melts, iceboxes were dependent upon a steady supply of it being delivered to their kitchens each day. Opening the door to the icebox too often sped up the inevitable melting. Yet even poor families owned iceboxes because the convenience of even far-from-perfect refrigeration made them a household necessity.

The first commercially viable electric refrigerator was the Domelre, a small air-cooled box that customers could place on top of their existing iceboxes. The refrigeration pioneer Fred Wolf invented it in 1913, towards the end of a career building large-scale refrigeration plants for a variety of commercial enterprises. By the 1920s, the practical considerations associated with household refrigeration were mostly resolved. And once the kinks were worked out, everybody wanted a refrigerator of their own. The market for refrigerators even grew during the Great Depression. As a result, mechanical refrigerator sales in the United States grew at a faster pace than anywhere else in the world, saturating the market by the end of World War II. The speed of their adoption was faster than a host of other comparable household technologies, including the clothes washer and the color television.

In today’s global economy, more people around the world aspire to emulate America’s lifestyle and that means an increased demand for refrigeration. In China, it is widely believed that cold drinks are bad for the stomach, yet Chinese refrigerators are still growing in size with the country’s increasing affluence. There is also an enormous potential for the number of refrigerators in China to grow further. As of 2005, only 12 percent of rural Chinese families owned refrigerators. In urban areas that figure was 80 percent. This leaves plenty of room to expand the reach of refrigerators even in China’s developed areas. Industrialized production has made it possible for more Chinese to buy refrigerators. The longest and most efficient cold chains in human history have made it possible for the Chinese to stock ever-larger refrigerators with perishable goods from around the world.

Unfortunately, this logistical triumph has serious consequences for the future of the planet. In 2009, the New York Times published a story about people who were foregoing refrigerators for the sake of a greener planet. “Refrigerator lust is one of the things driving huge energy-use increases in the developing world,” wrote one blogger quoted in that article. “A great deal of what’s in your fridge absolutely does NOT need to be there.” While technically true, imagine life without meat or ice cubes or cold milk or cold anything for that matter. Imagine never being able to preserve perishable packaged food once it’s opened. Certainly many people live without refrigeration today, but their diets are not nearly as varied and sophisticated as those with access to the end of a cold chain. More importantly, refrigeration all along the cold chain helps prevent food waste, a huge contributor to global warming all by itself.

As more and more people around the world are gaining access to refrigerators, now is a good time to consider the importance of this technology beyond its mere presence in our kitchens. Thanks to the efficiencies associated with the modern cold chain, almost every American can now afford to eat foods out of season, or foods of all kinds shipped in from far away.  Only needing to go shopping once each week may seem petty in the great scheme of things.  After all, what’s another day at the market compared to the fate of the Earth?  Luckily, the sustainability vs. convenience dilemma is not an either/or proposition. “Sustainable growth in refrigeration and air conditioning should provide the maximum growth of benefits with the minimization of other impacts,” argues the refrigerating engineer Robert Heap. In other words, society's goal should be to maintain the maximum level of convenience for people, preserving as much food as possible. We can still make a wide variety of perishable food readily available around the world, without forcing consumers to give up too much for the sake of the environment.  As household refrigerators are becoming more energy efficient all the time, whatever sacrifices that do need to be made will only decrease over time.

The size of our refrigerators, like the food we keep inside them, tells us something about our culture, our lifestyle and our values. If we better appreciate the importance of refrigerators in both the past and the present, then we can place their few adverse effects in their proper context. While refrigerators require energy, so does producing food in the first place or just driving to the supermarket. If food already travels a great distance to reach our homes, then we are lucky to have lots of space in which to preserve it.

This post appears courtesy of Object Lessons .

Essay on Refrigerator

A refrigerator is a popular domestic machine that has a thermally insulated compartment and a heat pump that transfers heat from inside the refrigerator to the external environment so that the temperature inside the refrigerator is lower than the ambient temperature of the room.

Nowadays refrigerator is used to preserve food in almost all countries, it reduces the reproduction rate of bacteria because they cannot breed in low temperature.

Keeps the refrigerator temperature slightly above the freezing point, the temperature is kept at 3-5 degrees (37 to 41 degrees F) to keep food safe.

Any machine whose temperature is below freezing point is called Freezer.

Even before the fridge, a machine was used to keep cool, which was called icebox, but the refrigerator replaced it.

Parts of Refrigerator- Essay on Refrigerator:

Refrigerator consists of very important parts that work in the process of refrigeration as follows:

Expansion Valve:

It is also known as flow control device.

An expansion valve works to control the flow of liquid refrigerant to the evaporator.

We also know liquid refrigerant by the name coolant.

The Expansion valve is a really small device and is very sensitive.

This makes sense of temperature change of refrigerant easily.

Compressor:

The compressor consists of a motor which pulls the refrigerant from the evaporator and compresses it to create hot high pressure gas inside the cylinder.

Evaporator:

This is the main part that actually cools the things kept inside the fridge, it has finned tubes.

They are made of metals whose thermal conductivity is very high so that it can increase heat transfer.

It absorbs the heat from the coil when the fan blows.

In this way, the evaporator absorbs the heat of the stuff inside the refrigerator and due to this heat the liquid refrigerant is converted into steam.

Condenser- essay on refrigerator:

The condenser is mounted on the back of the fridge which looks like a wire mesh.

These are tubes made of condenser coil in which the fin is made outward.

It absorbs the heat of the gaseous refrigerant and spreads it to the atmosphere, which helps to liquefy the gaseous refrigerant.

When the heat of the refrigerant is removed, its temperature is decreases and the condensation reaches at certain temperature and then becomes steam.

Refrigerant:

We also know the refrigerant by the name of coolant, it is a liquid that keeps the refrigeration cycle running continuously.

It is a very specially designed chemical which specializes in changing the states of hot gas and cool liquid.

In the 20th century, fluorocarbons, especially CFC’s were used as refrigerants.

But in terms of time, according to the environment, refrigerant took place like ammonia, R-290, R-600A etc.

Advantages of Refrigerator:

• We can store food in the fridge for a long time and keep it free from germs.
• Some food items are get deteriorate quickly due to the outside environment, we can also keep them in the fridge and use them after a few days.
• Even if the food is not wicked outside, there is a risk of insects getting bogged down, but the food is also saved from insects inside the fridge.
• We keep drinking water, cold drinks, there is no use of drinking without cooling and in that sense, it is also very beneficial for us.

Disadvantages of Refrigerator:

• We have to keep the fridge continuously with 24 * 7 electricity and it costs a lot of electricity.

Conclusion for refrigerator Essay:

Although we use the fridge every day but pay very little attention to it, most of all we remember it in the summer season because we need cold water and a cold drink.

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12 Benefits of Refrigerator that You Must Know

Roswell Haley

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Refrigerators have been used for food preservation for decades. Before the invention of refrigerator, people would preserve food with time tested methods like salting, spicing, pickling, drying or smoking. Today, refrigerators are not only limited to freezing and preserving foods. Have you ever thought why refrigerators have become the most popular preservation device and what are the actual benefits of refrigerators? Ok, let’s check…

Stock Food for Long Term

Save cooking time, have organized kitchen, extend freshness of fruits and vegetables, slow down the activity of bacteria, ice and water dispenser, chill desserts, chill drinks, rest dough and batter, preserve ripen fruit and leftover food, maximize the shelf life of perishable food, store heat sensitive drugs, how to use a refrigerator to get the best benefits form it, importance and benefits of refrigerators.

Refrigerators have made our life easier with their different types of features. Here are the most common advantages that it can bring.

Today you lead a busy life like others. So, you don’t have much time to purchase your grocery every day. That’s why buy your necessary grocery in bulk for a week or for a month and stock them in the refrigerator. You can use them whenever you need them. Refrigerator saves you from the rash of everyday grocery shopping or stocked out of the grocery.

No one wants to spend his time in the kitchen cooking every single meal separately. Nowadays it is really unrealistic to cook for 2 or 3 hours to make a meal when it takes only 15-20 minutes to finish that meal. Do you have a refrigerator? If yes, you can cook a larger portion and keep them in the refrigerator for the next several meals.

Imagine a kitchen without a refrigerator! How haphazard it could be! Vegetables, fruits, leftovers or raw foods remain here and there. Without a refrigerator, it is really hard to keep your kitchen tidy. There are separate compartments, drawers, shelves in a refrigerator to organize your different food products in a manner. It also saves your time to find out specific products in need.

Most of the fruits and vegetables won’t remain fresh at room temperature. The natural freshness of fruits and vegetables fades away along with time. Besides insect attacks make them unhygienic and spoiled. Refrigerators hold the freshness, hygiene and nutritional values of your foods for many days by controlling the moisture and temperature. Apart from that, it protects your foods from insect attacks.

Bacteria multiply quicker when the temperature is between 40° F and 140° F. It is called the temperature danger zone. Food poisoning bacteria can grow easily in your cooked or raw foods if you keep them in this danger zone for a long time. You might be sick after consuming those foods. Your refrigerator’s temperature must be less than 40° F. The lower temperature reduces the max growth of bacteria and keeps your foods safe from being poisoned.

This amazing feature located outside of your refrigerator. It allows you to have instant cool water and ice just with one press. You no need to lose interior coolness by opening your refrigerator’s door. Refrigerators are used for preserving drinking water and ice cubes on summer days. But the ice and water dispenser makes it easier to have chill water without preserving water. It is connected to your home water line and fills automatically when the dispenser becomes empty.

Think about having melted ice cream, you won’t like it, do you? Some desserts must be chilled while taking them. If you have a refrigerator you can chill your homemade desserts or you can store purchased desserts for later consumption.

Who doesn’t like chilled drinks! Most of us look for the cold one while drinking juices, coke or other drinks. You can store drinks in the refrigerator or store ice cubes to garnish your drinks.

Some dough and batter provide the best result if they are rested in the refrigerator for a certain time. You may make dough and batter for pizza, doughnut, bread, pie, cake and brownie and store them in your refrigerator for future use. Decorated cakes, brownies, pies, and ready to cook foods are also preserved in the refrigerator.

Sometimes, you have ripened fruit or leftover food that no one is going to take now. But later it might be rotted or spoiled and you won’t have another way but throw it in the trash bin. A refrigerator can save you from this type of wasting food. Refrigerators hold the natural process of over ripening and eventually decay and keeps the foods consumable for a certain time.

Raw meat, poultry, fish, egg and milk are the most perishable food. The food ingredients, moisture, nutrients, taste change rapidly at room temperature. The freezer part helps you to freeze meat and fish for a longer time and keep their natural components unchanged. Milk can be stored in both freezer and fridge compartments for a month or 1/2 weeks respectively. Milk based products like cheese, butter, cream, buttermilk etc. need to be stored in the refrigerator. Eggs should be kept in the refrigerator part to maintain the internal moisture and quality.

Some medicines like insulin, injections, antibiotic liquids, eye drops and antiseptic creams are recommended to keep between 35.6° F and 46° F. temperature. So, Store those medicines in your refrigerator to maintain the exact temperature range and safe use.

You also can preserve your beauty and skin care products in the refrigerator, it protects your products’ values and qualities.

• Set your refrigerator thermistor according to the outside temperature.
• Store your foods in strong and airtight packets or boxes.
• Do not keep open refrigerator doors for a long time.
• Keep an eye on food validity. Never consume expired dated food.
• Do not store foods for longer than six months.
• Do not overstuff your refrigerator.
• Clean your refrigerator on a regular basis.

Almost all foods are perishable. Refrigerators slow down the growth of bacteria in food and the natural process of becoming perish and keep the food eat worthy for a certain period. Refrigerator chemicals are harmless. It is totally safe if you store foods in the right way.

Refrigerators have some side effects like providing greenhouse gas; changing food nutrients, color, taste or smell; causing cold, sore throat, cough and sneeze. Nowadays brands provide energy efficient or climate friendly refrigerators which affect less to the environment. If you store food in an airtight box or packet and be aware of storing period, food elements can be maintained. If you have a cold problem, try to avoid eating food directly out of the refrigerator.

Misuse, overloaded or confined space causes refrigerant poisoning. There are two kinds of poisoning. Headache, nausea, frostbite, cough, vomiting, chemical burnt skin, dizziness, throat irritation are the common symptoms of mild poisoning. Fluid buildup, bleeding in the lungs, burning esophagus sensation, vomiting up blood, difficulty in breathtaking and loss of consciousness are the symptoms of severe refrigerant poisoning.

If you do not clean your refrigerator on a regular basis, it becomes sticky and stinky. Dirty refrigerators act as a breeding ground for harmful bacteria like salmonella, listeria, E. coli etc. It can contaminate your foods and consuming that food can make you sick. Apart from that, an unclean refrigerator may show different problems .

Fridge does not kill germs. The cold temperature of the refrigerator makes inactive or slows down the growth of germs, so the food’s life is increased and food stays in the same state for several days. The germs become active as soon as the food is brought out from the refrigerator.

A refrigerator is necessary to lead a smooth life. In the modern buy time, people don’t have enough time to cook food and serve several times in a day. For this changed lifestyle, refrigerator plays a vital role by storing ‘ready to take’ food. Again, health conscious people are very picky about the freshness and nutrients of their foods. Refrigerators ensure their needs too. Finally, a refrigerator not only saves your money and time but also ensures your food quality at the same time.

About the author

Roswell Haley is a skilled appliance repair technician with expertise in repairing refrigerators and washing machines. With his extensive experience in appliance repair, she provides reliable and efficient service to his customers. She also provides helpful tips on Quora . Apart from that she has a passion for travel and enjoys exploring new places.

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The Importance Of Refrigeration Technology History Essay

Published Date: 23 Mar 2015

Disclaimer: This essay has been written and submitted by students and is not an example of our work. Please click this link to view samples of our professional work witten by our professional essay writers . Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of EssayCompany.

The refrigeration technology is an important technology in that it slows down the growth of bacteria. In doing this, it lowers the risks of diseases. This is because bacteria exist all around us including in the foods that we eat. When the bacteria are supplied with enough nutrients and favorable climatic conditions, they grow rapidly and hence can cause illnesses. Refrigeration technology comes in hardy to stop the rapid multiplication of the bacteria and this is a benefit to the society in that its chances of falling ill from Bacteria illnesses are reduced (Bauer, 1998)

Historical roots behind refrigeration.

The very first artificial refrigeration known was the demonstration presented at the University of Glasgow by William Cullen in 1748. This discovery however was not use for any practical purpose. The first refrigerator was designed by Oliver Evans, an American inventor in 1748. But the first practical refrigerator was built in 1834 by Jacob Perkins. This refrigerator used vapor in a vapor compression cycle. John Gorrie an American physician built a refrigerator in 1844 based on Evans design. This refrigerator was built with the aim of making ice to cool the air for the yellow fever patients that he was treating. Carl Von Linden, a German engineer patented, in 1976 the process of liquefying gas but not the refrigerator (Burstall, 65). Gas liquefaction is the basic part of refrigeration technology. The first refrigerators were made of wood cabinet and a compressor that was cooled with water. Steel and porcelain cabinets emerged in 1920s to replace the wooden refrigerators which were less effective. The evolutions of the refrigerators continue to improve in the 50s and 60s and they became better to suit the needs of the customers. Automatic ice makers and automatic defrost were added in the refrigerator with the aim of making them user friendly and reduce the maintenance. The modern day refrigeration technology is aimed at making the refrigerators more environments friendly (About.Com)

The refrigeration process has not stopped evolving. The early refrigerators of 1800 used toxic gas like ammonia, methyl chloride and sulfur dioxide as the refrigerant. These were used up to 1929. In the 1920s, there are many fatal accidents which occurred. This was caused by the leaking of methyl chloride from the refrigerators. It was after this that 3 American corporations embarked on intensive research to come up with a less dangerous method of refrigeration. Their efforts led to the use of Freon which became a standard for all refrigerators. Freon was changed in 1996 and it was replaced with HFC 134a. This was done so as to comply with The Regulatory Clean Air Act. The replacement was done because HFC 134a was less injurious to the environment and the Ozone as compared to Freon. The effectiveness of HFC 134a was just the same as Freon and the users of refrigerators did not notice any difference.

The table below shows the milestones achieved in the refrigeration technology.

Milestones:

1000 The Chinese cut and stored ice

500   Egyptians and Indians made ice on cold nights by setting water out in earthenware pots

1700 In England, servants collected ice in the winter and put it into icehouses for use in the summer

1720 Dr. William Cullen, a Scotsman, studied the evaporation of liquids in a vacuum

1805 Oliver Evans of Pennsylvania, compressed ether machine, the machine is never built

1820 Michael Faraday, a Londoner, liquefied ammonia to cause cooling

1834 Jacob Perkins, ether vapor compression cycle, Ice Making Machine

1844 James Harrison of Australia invents compressed ether machine

1850 Edmond Carre of France, invents an absorption process machine

1852 William Thomson & James Prescott cooling increases in proportion to the pressure difference

1855 Dr. John Gorrie builds compression refrigeration system based on Faraday's experiments.

1856 James Harrison commissioned by a brewery to build a machine that cooled beer.

1859 Ferdinand Carre of France, developed the first ammonia/water refrigeration machine

1871 Carl von Linde of Germany published an essay on improved refrigeration techniques

1873 Carl von Linde first practical and portable compressor refrigeration machine was built in Munich

1874 Raoul Pictet of Switzerland, a compressor system using sulfur dioxide instead of ammonia

1876 Carl von Linde, early models he used methyl ether, but changed to an ammonia cycle

1878 von Linde starts Lindes Eismaschinen AG, (Society for Lindes Ice Machines), now Linde AG

1881 Edmund J. Copeland and Arnold H. Gross start Leonard Refrigerator Company

1894 Linde developed a new method (Linde technique) for the liquefaction of large quantities of air.

1894 Linde AG installs refrigerator at the Guinness brewery in Dublin, Ireland

1895 Carl von Linde produced large amounts of liquid air using the Thomson-Joule effect

1901 Patent # 665,814 issued January 10, for a Refridgeator (Ice Box) invented by Henry Trost.

1911 General Electric company unveiled a refrigerator invented by a French monk. Abbe Audiffren

1913 Fred W. Wolf Jr.of the Domelre Company (DOMestic Electric Refrigerator)

1914 Leonard Refrigerator Company renamed Electro-Automatic Refrigerating Company

1915 Alfred Mellowes starts Guardian Frigerato to build first self-container refrigerator for home use

1916 Servel models compressors were generally driven by motors located in the basement

1916 Henry Joy of Packard Motor Car Co. purchased the Fred W. Wolf refrigerator rights

1918 Guardian Frigerato purchased by General Motors and renamed Frigidaire

1918 Electro-Automatic Refrigerating Company renamed Kelvinator

1920 there were some 200 different refrigerator models on the market.

1922 Baltzar von Platen and Carl Munters introduce absorption process refrigerator

1923 Kelvinator held 80 percent of the market for electric refrigerators

1923 AB Arctic.begins production of refrigerators based on Platen-Munter's invention

1925 Electrolux purchases AB Arctic and launches the "D-fridge" on the world market

1925 Steel and porcelain cabinets began appearing in the mid-20s

1927 first refrigerator to see widespread use was the General Electric "Monitor-Top" refrigerator.

1930 first built-in refrigerator is launched by Electrolux

1931 Dupont produced commercial quantities of R-12, trademarked as Freon

1931 the first air-cooled refrigerator introduced by Electrolux

1932 Gibson, then owned by Frank Gibson, manufactured its own line of refrigerators.

1934 an innovation, the Shelvador refrigerator, was introduced by the Crosley Radio Corporation

1936 Albert Henne synthesizes refrigerant R-134a

1937 more than 2 million Americans owned refrigerators.

1939 refrigerator with one section for frozen food and a second for chilled food, introduced by G. E.

1946 Mass production of modern refrigerators didn't get started until after World War II.

1947 GE two-door refrigerator-freezer combination

1955 80% of American homes now have refrigerators

2005 A domestic refrigerator is present in 99.5% of American homes

 Table 1. Source: The Great Idea Finder

Is refrigeration an old or a new technology.

Refrigeration is an old technology that started a long time ago. Refrigeration concept can be said to originate from the prehistoric times. During this period, man found that the meat he had hunted lasted longer when stored in the cool areas of the cave or when packed in snow. The early man found that when he stored his game in cold temperatures, it lasted for long. He therefore hunted excess game which he kept in cold temperatures and he would eat this meat when the food was in short supply. As the early man progressed, he started using ice which he harvested in winter to use in summer. Ice was also harvested from lakes and rivers to be used for the purpose of refrigeration.

Adding chemicals like sodium and potassium nitrate to water so as to lower its temperatures was the next stage in the history of refrigeration. It is recorded that this method was used to cool wine in 1550. The use of mechanical refrigeration started in the last quarter of the 19th century. This evolution was a long slow process (Trevor, 1978)

Has refrigeration led to any type of social change?

The refrigeration technology can be said to have a great impact to women in particular. This is because women are viewed as the domestic worker (Cowan, 137-138). Though this mentality has changed in the modern world, there is still the thought that the domestic world belongs to women. The refrigerators can be seen to symbolize the freedom of house wives. They have saved women from preserving foods in the old fashioned ways of salting, smoking or dehydrating. The air conditioning has contributed immensely to the development of the hot and humid areas both socially and economically. This has been achieved through creation of habitable environments with desired temperatures and humidity levels in office buildings and private homes (Barbara, 2003)

Benefits of refrigeration to the society

Refrigeration has changed the lifestyles of the society in various ways. One can buy food for a whole week without fear of it getting spoiled after refrigeration. Cooked food can also be stored for long without getting spoilt. Salting of food as a method of preservation is long forgotten. The food preserved using this method did not even last for a long time. One can also get a cold drink during the hottest summer and this seemed like a dream before refrigeration wad invented. Fruits, vegetables and even flowers can be kept fresh for a long period of time with refrigeration. The modern life is in the fast lane. This has called for most people to be working for long hours or working two jobs. In homes both partners may be busy for up to a whole week and hence no time for everyday cooking. With refrigeration, they can cook as much food as possible when they are free and storing it in refrigerators and they can eat it throughout the week. This saves them much time which could have been wasted ion cooking after work. With refrigeration, the temperature of the food is lowered and thus the food can be kept for long to be used later without getting spoiled (Shephard, 29)

Refrigeration is also widely used for the purposes of air conditioning in homes, public buildings and restaurants. It is also used for refrigeration of foodstuffs in restaurants and also in large storage warehouses. Refrigerators have become very common in the United States. Most American homes started using refrigerators a long time ago. More than 80 % of the rural American and more than 90% of urban American homes used owned a refrigerator by the year 1950 (Historychannel.com)

Refrigeration is also used commercially and in manufacturing industries. It is used to liquefy gases including oxygen, nitrogen, propane, and methane. It is used to compress and condense water vapor in compressed air purification. This process is aimed at reducing the moisture content of compressed air. In industries like petrochemical, refineries and chemical plants, refrigeration is important as it is used for the maintenance of certain chemical processes and reactions at low temperatures. An example is in the production of high octane gasoline component where the alkylation's of butanes and butane is done at low temperatures (Noor, 2009)

Refrigeration is therefore a vital technology in many sectors of the economy like the dairy industry, the meat industry, fish and pork industry and also in the fruits and vegetables sector. In the non food sectors, refrigeration is used in school laboratories to store chemicals, samples and cultures. It is also the technology that is used to preserver corpses in morgues.

Detrimental effects of refrigeration to the society.

The refrigerant used in refrigerators has a negative effect on the environment. Though the use of CFC has been banned, some manufactures may sell the old stocks of refrigerators which use CFC. These are detrimental to the ozone layer. The HFCs being used on modern refrigerators are strong green house gas emitters. Though they do not harm the ozone, they destroy the environment that we live-in. Refrigeration contributes to the global warming. Though HFCs were seen as the solution to refrigeration, it has a very high potential of global warming. This contribution is due to direct emissions of the refrigerant gases. Most of these emissions are due to leakage of the refrigerant into the environment either due to poor maintenance and containment. Freon was seen as been safer to the consumer though it had negative impacts on the environment. Clean Air Act was passed in 1990 and it restricted use of CFCs. Many industries had no other choice than to be forced to phase out CFCs in their products (Gopalnarayanan, 19)

Refrigeration as a symbol of growth.

Refrigeration has allowed many families and industries to keep food fresh for long periods of time. It is a symbol of growth in that most families are small and they occupy a small piece of land and hence there is no space for keeping livestock and growing different varieties of fruits and vegetables. Also most modern families live in towns and cities where there are no gardens for growing fruits and vegetables or keeping animals. This does not therefore mean that because these families are limited by these factors, they cannot enjoy a varied and balanced diet. Supermarkets have stocked all types of me4at, eggs, vegetables and eggs in their refrigerated shelves. These customers come and buy the same and stock it in their refrigerators. The fish, poultry, dairy products and vegetables can be kept in the same space of the refrigerator within the kitchen.

Refrigeration is an important symbol of growth and societal progress in that the society can enjoy a variety of salads, fruits and vegetables all year long without having and tilling their own garden. The society can also enjoy dairy products without having their own dairy animals, meat products without owning beef cattle, egg products without rearing their own poultry and all kinds of fish without having a fish pond all year round. Also other types of foods from far off countries are madder available to the society. These food products are shipped or delivered by air under refrigeration.

Refrigeration allows purchase of goods in large scale and in bulk. With regard to economies of scale, this saves on money. It has become possible to enjoy ice cream which may have been produced from abroad unlike in the past where ice cream was eaten on the spot at the place of manufacture. Through refrigeration world trade has been opened up and refrigerated goods from one country can be easily market in another without the fear of spoilage.

Refrigeration technology has acted as a source of employment to many people. The direct employees include the refrigeration experts, technicians; mechanics and installers. These are mainly people employed by air conditioning, plumbing and heating contractors and companies. Indirect employment involve people in other sectors e.g. in shops that sell the refrigeration equipments, dairy farmers, fishermen and fruits and vegetable farmers.

How government institutions helped shape refrigeration.

Government as a regulator- the government through the Environmental Protection Agency has set standards for monitoring and regulating refrigerant leaks. There are other regulations and strict standards that have been set by the government regarding green house emissions from the refrigerants. The government has identified CFCs, HCFCs, and PFCs as ozone depleting gases (ODS) and also global warming gases and has therefore prohibited their use as refrigerants. These are the gases commonly used for HVAC and in AC units. Many US states have increased the demand for a detailed refrigerant reporting requirement (Stouffer, 1998).

Government as consumer- many government buildings, both central and federal government, is installed with air conditioners, refrigerators and other heating and cooling systems that use the refrigeration technology. Also government hospitals and other governmental organizations are installed with refrigeration systems. This is evident that the government is a major consumer of the refrigeration technology.

Is refrigeration an example of deterministic technology or socially constructed technology.

In my opinion, refrigeration is a socially constructed technology. Refrigeration does not determine the human actions but rather it is the human actions that have shaped refrigeration. The need for fresh products has resulted into the invention of the refrigeration technology. Human beings actions are such that they are very busy either in work places or in school and hence have no time to cook fresh foods every day. This has led to the development of the refrigeration technology. With its development, the human beings are now able to cook more food whenever they are free which they can refrigerate and eat them for a long period of time.

Refrigeration can be said to the process of heat removal from substances. It is done with the aim of lowering the temperature of the substance and maintaining that low temperature. Refrigeration in food is done to reduce the risk of bacteria survival. Bacteria are responsible for most of the illnesses. The technology of refrigeration can be said to have started a long time ago. Its evolution is still continuing as we seek to find the best refrigerant that can be safe to us and to our environment. Refrigeration has been associated with a lot of benefits in our homes and in the society at large. Many homes in the United States are now equipped with a refrigerator.

Important words used :refrigerator, fridge, fridgerator, refrigeration, Carl Linde, Carl von Linde, William Cullen, Oliver Evans, Fred Wolf, Linde, William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, James Prescott Joule,  invention, history, inventor of, history of, who invented, invention of, CFC, HCFC, ODS,AC, HAVC.

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Word of the day

Word of the Day: jeer

This word has appeared in five articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?

By The Learning Network

jeer \ dʒɪər \ verb and noun

verb: laugh at with contempt and derision noun: the act of scoffing, taunting, or mocking

Listen to the pronunciation.

The word jeer has appeared in five articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on Sept. 5 in The New York Times Magazine Letter of Recommendation “ Why I Love Doing Homework (Even If My Kids Hate It) ” by Saul Austerlitz:

My kids call me the homework villain. Every school-day afternoon, my two sons — the older is entering sixth grade, the younger second grade — return home and gather snacks before beginning the day’s homework tussle. They are tired and ready to play video games or to watch incomprehensible YouTube videos about video games. I ignore all complaints, offer up my trademark cackle and direct them to the index cards on our fridge listing the day’s homework: reading, math, writing and even — when I am feeling particularly villainous — Hebrew reading. … I don’t love being the bad guy my kids jeer when I remind them that it is homework time once again. But I am thankful to be granted the opportunity to walk alongside them as they commit to the work of learning. I enjoy seeing them overcome the initial impulse that if something doesn’t come easily, it isn’t worth doing …

Daily Word Challenge

Can you correctly use the word jeer in a sentence?

Based on the definition and example provided, write a sentence using today’s Word of the Day and share it as a comment on this article. It is most important that your sentence makes sense and demonstrates that you understand the word’s definition, but we also encourage you to be creative and have fun.

If you want a better idea of how jeer can be used in a sentence, read these usage examples on Vocabulary.com . You can also visit this guide to learn how to use IPA symbols to show how different words are pronounced.

If you enjoy this daily challenge, try our vocabulary quizzes .

Students ages 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, can comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff.

The Word of the Day is provided by Vocabulary.com . Learn more and see usage examples across a range of subjects in the Vocabulary.com Dictionary . See every Word of the Day in this column .