Historical applications

[edit] Ice harvesting
The use of ice to refrigerate and thus preserve food goes back to prehistoric times.[1][2] Through the ages, the seasonal harvesting of snow and ice was a regular practice of most of the ancient cultures: Chinese, Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, Persians. Ice and snow were stored in caves or dugouts lined with straw or other insulating materials. The Persians stored ice in pits called Yakhchals. Rationing of the ice allowed the preservation of foods over the cold periods. This practice worked well down through the centuries, with icehouses remaining in use into the twentieth century.
In the 16th century, the discovery of chemical refrigeration was one of the first steps toward artificial means of refrigeration. Sodium nitrate or potassium nitrate, when added to water, lowered the water temperature and created a sort of refrigeration bath for cooling substances. In Italy, such a solution was used to chill wine.[3]
During the first half of the 19th century, ice harvesting became big business in America. New Englander Frederic Tudor, who became known as the "Ice King", worked on developing better insulation products for the long distance shipment of ice, especially to the refrigeration systems
The first known method of artificial refrigeration was demonstrated by William Cullen at the University of Glasgow in Scotland in 1748. Cullen used a pump to create a partial vacuum over a container of diethyl ether, which then boiled , absorbing heat from the surrounding air. The experiment even created a small amount of ice, but had no practical application at that time.
In 1805, American inventor Oliver Evans designed but never built a refrigeration system based on the vapor-compression refrigeration cycle rather than chemical solutions or volatile liquids such as ethyl ether.
In 1820, the British scientist Michael Faraday liquefied ammonia and other gases by using high pressures and low temperatures.
An American living in Great Britain, Jacob Perkins, obtained the first patent for a vapor-compression refrigeration system in 1834. Perkins built a prototype system and it actually worked, although it did not succeed commercially.[4]
In 1842, an American physician, John Gorrie, designed the first system for refrigerating water to produce ice. He also conceived the idea of using his refrigeration system to cool the air for comfort in homes and hospitals (i.e., air-conditioning). His system compressed air, then partially cooled the hot compressed air with water before allowing it to expand while doing part of the work required to drive the air compressor. That isentropic expansion cooled the air to a temperature low enough to freeze water and produce ice, or to flow "through a pipe for effecting refrigeration otherwise" as stated in his patent granted by the U.S. Patent Office in 1851.[5] Gorrie built a working prototype, but his system was a commercial failure.
Alexander Twining began experimenting with vapor-compression refrigeration in 1848 and obtained patents in 1850 and 1853. He is credited with having initiated commercial refrigeration in the United States by 1856.

Dunedin, the first commercially successful refrigerated ship.
Meanwhile, James Harrison who was born in Scotland and subsequently emigrated to Australia, begun operation of a mechanical ice-making machine in 1851 on the banks of the Barwon River at Rocky Point in Geelong. His first commercial ice-making machine followed in 1854 and his patent for an ether liquid-vapour compression refrigeration system was granted in 1855. Harrison introduced commercial vapor-compression refrigeration to breweries and meat packing houses and by 1861, a dozen of his systems were in operation.
Australian, Argentinean and American concerns experimented with refrigerated shipping in the mid 1870s, the first commercial success coming when William Soltau Davidson fitted a compression refrigeration unit to the New Zealand vessel Dunedin in 1882, leading to a meat and dairy boom in Australasia and South America.Widespread commercial use
By the 1870s breweries had become the largest users of commercial refrigeration units, though some still relied on harvested ice. Though the ice-harvesting industry had grown immensely by the turn of the 20th century, pollution and sewage had begun to creep into natural ice making it a problem in the metropolitan suburbs. Eventually breweries began to complain of tainted ice. This raised demand for more modern and consumer-ready refrigeration and ice-making machines. In 1895 German engineer Carl von Linde set up a large-scale process for the production of liquid air and eventually liquid oxygen for use in safe household refrigerators.
Refrigerated railroad cars were introduced in the US in the 1840s for the short-run transportation of dairy products. In 1867 J.B. Sutherland of Detroit, Michigan patented the refrigerator car designed with ice tanks at either end of the car and ventilator flaps near the floor which would create a gravity draft of cold air through the car.
By 1900 the meat packing houses of Chicago had adopted ammonia-cycle commercial refrigeration. By 1914 almost every location used artificial refrigeration. The big meat packers, Armour, Swift, and Wilson, had purchased the most expensive units which they installed on train cars and in branch houses and storage facilities in the more remote distribution areas.
It was not until the middle of the 20th century that refrigeration units were designed for installation on tractor-trailer rigs (trucks or lorries). Refrigerated vehicles are used to transport perishable goods, such as frozen foods, fruit and vegetables, and temperature-sensitive chemicals. Most modern refrigerators keep the temperature between -40 and +20 °C and have a maximum payload of around 24 000 kg. gross weight (in Europe).