First of all, you should know that refrigeration is based on a simple principle: the evaporation of a liquid to keep things cold. You already know about this principle, you experience it every time you perspire to release extra heat from your body, or cooling off by getting wet.  When the water evaporates off your body, it uses energy by absorbing heat and cooling you off. The effect of putting alcohol on your skin is even better at cooling, because alcohol evaporates at an even lower temperature.

In a refrigerator the liquid that evaporates does so at an extremely low temperature, cold enough to create the icy cold conditions inside your fridge and freezer. If you should be foolish enough to put some of the refrigerator’s coolant on your skin, your skin will freeze as the refrigerant evaporates.

Your refrigerator is made up of five basic parts:

1.    Compressor

2.    Heat-exchanging pipes- coiled or serpentine, found outside the fridge

3.    Expansion valve

4.    Heat-exchanging pipers-coiled or serpentine, found inside the fridge

5.    Refrigerant- the liquid which evaporates inside the refrigerator to create the cold environment of the fridge.

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Even though many things taste better cold, like drinks and other foods, the real purpose, and revolutionary effect of refrigeration is to keep foods from spoiling, especially sensitive foods like meat and dairy products. For example, milk would spoil in a matter of hours if left at room temperature, but at the normal temperature of a home fridge, milk can last a week or more. If milk is kept frozen it will last much longer. This is because there are bacteria in food that grow quickly at ordinary temperatures, and if left to themselves they will reproduce until the food is no longer edible. These same bacteria grow much, much less rapidly at extremely cold temperatures, like 40 degrees Fahrenheit (about 5 degrees Centigrade.) At zero degrees Centigrade (32 degrees F) the growth of bacteria is entirely checked.

Without refrigeration we would need other ways to preserve foods, like old fashioned ice boxes, or salting food which also inhibits bacterial growth.

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