Sales and Distribution Management

Open Book

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90 mts

Einstein fridge design can help global cooling

Scientists relaunch a 1930 invention that uses no electricity and would reduce greenhouse
gases
An early invention by Albert Einstein has been rebuilt by scientists at Oxford University
who are trying to develop an environmentally friendly refrigerator that runs without
electricity.
Modern fridges are notoriously damaging to the environment. They work by compressing
and expanding man-made greenhouse gases called freons - far more damaging that
carbon dioxide - and are being manufactured in increasing numbers. Sales of fridges
around the world are rising as demand increases in developing countries.
Now Malcolm McCulloch, an electrical engineer at
Oxford who works on green technologies, is leading
a three-year project to develop more robust
appliances that can be used in places without
electricity.
His team has completed a prototype of a type of
fridge patented in 1930 by Einstein and his
colleague, the Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard. It
had no moving parts and used only pressurised gases
to keep things cold. The design was partly used in the
first domestic refrigerators, but the technology was
abandoned when more efficient compressors became
popular in the 1950s. That meant a switch to using
freons.
Einstein and Szilard's idea avoids the need for freons.
It uses ammonia, butane and water and takes advantage of the fact that liquids boil at
lower temperatures when the air pressure around them is lower. 'If you go to the top of
Mount Everest, water boils at a much lower temperature than it does when you're at sea
level and that's because the pressure is much lower up there,' said McCulloch.
At one side is the evaporator, a flask that contains butane. 'If you introduce a new vapour
above the butane, the liquid boiling temperature decreases and, as it boils off, it takes
energy from the surroundings to do so,' says McCulloch. 'That's what makes it cold.'
Pressurised gas fridges based around Einstein's design were replaced by freoncompressor fridges partly because Einstein and Szilard's design was not very efficient.

But McCulloch thinks that by tweaking the design and replacing the types of gases used
it will be possible to quadruple the efficiency. He also wants to take the idea further. The
only energy input needed into the fridge is to heat a pump, and McCulloch has been
working on powering this with solar energy.
'No moving part is a real benefit because it can carry on going without maintenance. This
could have real applications in rural areas,' he said.
McCulloch's is not the only technology to improve the environmental credentials of
fridges. Engineers working at a Cambridge-based start-up company, Camfridge, are using
magnetic fields to cool things. 'Our fridge works, from a conceptual point of view, in a
similar way [to gas compressor fridges] but instead of using a gas we use a magnetic field
and a special metal alloy,' said managing director Neil Wilson.
'When the magnetic field is next to the alloy, it's like compressing the gas, and when the
magnetic field leaves, it's like expanding the gas.' He added: 'This effect can be seen in
rubber bands - when you stretch the band it gets hot, and when you let the band contract
it gets cold.'
Doug Parr, chief scientist at Greenpeace UK, said creating greener fridges was hugely
important. 'If you look at developing countries, if they're aspiring to the lifestyles that we
lead, they're going to require more cooling - whether that's air conditioning, food cooling
or freezing. Putting in place the technologies that are both low greenhouse-gas
refrigerants and low energy use is critical.'
McCulloch's fridge is still in its early stages. 'It's very much a prototype; this is nowhere
near commercialised,' he said. 'Give us another month and we'll have it working.'
Questions would be based on application of concepts of Marketing and selling and
Channel management discussed in class so far.