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A refrigerator (often called a "fridge" for short) is a cooling appliance comprising a thermally insulated compartment and a mechanism to transfer heat from it to the external environment, cooling the contents to a temperature below ambient. more...

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Refrigerators are extensively used to store foods which deteriorate at ambient temperatures; spoilage from bacterial growth and other processes is much slower at low temperatures. A device described as a "refrigerator" maintains a temperature a few degrees above the freezing point of water; a similar devices which maintains a temperature below the freezing point of water is called a "freezer". The refrigerator is a relatively modern invention amongst kitchen appliances. It replaced the common icebox which had been placed outside for almost a century and a half prior, and is sometimes still called by the original name "icebox".

Freezers keep their contents, usually foods, frozen. They are used both in households and for commercial use. Most freezers operate at around -18 °C (0 °F). Domestic freezers can be included as a compartment in a refrigerator, sharing the same mechanism or with a separate mechanism, or can be standalone units. Domestic freezers are generally upright units, resembling refrigerators, or chests, resembling upright units laid on their backs. Many modern freezers come with an icemaker.

Commercial fridge and freezer units, which go by many other names, were in use for almost 40 years prior to the common home models. They used toxic ammonia gas systems, making them unsafe for home use. Practical household refrigerators were introduced in the 1915 and gained wider acceptance in the United States in the 1930s as prices fell and non-toxic, non-flammable synthetic refrigerants such as Freon or R-12 were introduced. It is notable that while 60% of households in the US owned a refrigerator by the 1930s, it was not until 40 years later, in the 1970s, that the refrigerator achieved a similar level of penetration in the United Kingdom.

History of the refrigerator

See also: Timeline of low-temperature technology

Before the invention of the refrigerator, icehouses were used to provide cool storage for most of the year. These structures were mainly built and used in ancient Persia (Iran). Placed near freshwater lakes or packed with snow and ice during the winter, they were once very common. Using the environment to cool foodstuffs is still common today. On mountainsides run off from melting snow higher up is a convenient way to cool drinks, and during the winter months simply placing one's milk outside one's window is sufficient to greatly extend its useful life.

The first known artificial refrigeration was demonstrated by William Cullen at the University of Glasgow in 1748, and relied on the vapor-compression refrigeration process explained by Michael Faraday. Between 1805, when Oliver Evans designed the first refrigeration machine that used vapor instead of liquid, and 1902 when Willis Haviland Carrier demonstrated the first air conditioner, scores of inventors contributed many small advances in cooling machinery. In 1850 or 1851, Dr. John Gorrie demonstrated an ice maker. In 1857, Australian James Harrison introduced vapor-compression refrigeration to the brewing and meat packing industries. The absorption refrigerator was invented by Baltzar von Platen and Carl Munters in 1922, while they were still students at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. It became a worldwide success and was commercialized by Electrolux. Other pioneers included Charles Tellier, David Boyle, and Raoul Pictet.

Read more at Wikipedia.org