Gas absorption refrigerator

An absorption refrigerator is a refrigerator that uses a heat source (e.g., solar energy, a fossil-fueled flame, waste heat from factories, or district heating systems) to provide the energy needed to drive the cooling process.

Absorption refrigerators are often used for food storage in recreational vehicles. The principle can also be used to air-condition buildings using the waste heat from a gas turbine or water heater. Using waste heat from a gas turbine makes the turbine very efficient because it first produces electricity, then hot water, and finally, air-conditioning (called cogeneration/trigeneration).

The standard for the absorption refrigerator is given by the ANSI/AHRI standard 560-2000.

In the early years of the twentieth century, the vapor absorption cycle using water-ammonia systems was popular and widely used, but after the development of the vapor compression cycle it lost much of its importance because of its low coefficient of performance (about one fifth of that of the vapor compression cycle). Nowadays, the vapor absorption cycle is used only where waste heat is available or where heat is derived from solar collectors. Absorption refrigerators are a popular alternative to regular compressor refrigerators where electricity is unreliable, costly, or unavailable, where noise from the compressor is problematic, or where surplus heat is available (e.g., from turbine exhausts or industrial processes, or from solar plants).

Absorption cooling was invented by the French scientist Ferdinand Carré in 1858. The original design used water and sulphuric acid.

In 1922 Baltzar von Platen and Carl Munters, while they were still students at the Royal Institute of Technology in , Sweden, enhanced the principle with a 3-fluid configuration. This "Platen-Munters" design can operate without a pump.

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