1927

Electric Refrigeration

Just about every home in the developed world has a refrigerator/freezer. Why? Because it helps food last longer. A gallon of milk sitting on the kitchen counter turns sour in just a few hours. Bacteria in the milk produce acid that curdles it. Put a piece of raw meat on the counter and it starts to go putrid as bacteria live their lives there.

By putting food in a refrigerator, the bacteria slow down. Now milk, meat, vegetables, leftovers, and more can last a week before bacteria can spoil them. In the freezer, bacteria stop cold, so frozen foods can last for months.

The first widespread technology for refrigeration came in the form of the icebox. The iceman would come by every few days and deliver the ice for it. Two problems: home ice delivery could get expensive, and the icebox was not quite cold enough.

To create a real refrigerator/freezer, engineers needed to take the same vapor compression idea used in air conditioning and make it smaller, more efficient, and safer. Early refrigerators were huge and they used poisonous liquids like ammonia. One key development was the miniaturization of motors and compressors, leading to GE’s first electric home refrigerator in 1927. The invention of Freon as a refrigerant was also key. It was safe, inexpensive, and made things easier.; Refrigerator prices fell significantly. Soon just about every household had a refrigerator. Ice in the door arrived in 1965.

There was one fly in the ointment, however, that engineers did not anticipate. It turns out that Freon molecules can leak out of a refrigerator, and in the air they last a hundred years or more. They are not toxic to humans but the Freon molecules drift into the stratosphere and start destroying ozone. A ban on Freon and the development of new, safer refrigerants has reversed this problem, although it will be decades before it is completely solved.

SEE ALSO Water Treatment (1854), Air Conditioning (1902), Frozen Pizza (1957), Green Revolution (1961), Irradiated Food (1963).

Electric refrigerators were huge improvements over the icebox.