College Student Invents Affordable Solar-Powered Fridge
A British college student has invented a new type of solar-powered fridge that can be built entirely from household materials. According to 21 year old Emily Cummins, the fridge works with the help of evaporation. The fridge stays at a comfortable 6° C without using any power, and can keep perishables cool for days.
Cummins’ fridge is made up of two cylinders, with one inside the other. The inner cylinder is made of metal, and the water-soaked outer cylinder can be made from wood or plastic. When placed in the sun, the sun heats the outer cylinder and water evaporates off. Heat is removed from the inner cylinder during the evaporation process, keeping the interior of the fridge cool.
Emily Cummins isn’t the first person to design a solar fridge, but the cheapness of her design makes it ideal for poor locales.
Photo Credit: Flickr user Nictalopen under a CC license
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January 8th, 2009 at 11:44 am
recently there has been another news like this, it seems the idea is ages old: Click here
January 8th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
Sounds more like a keg party.
January 9th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Sounds like basic evaporative cooling to me. Here is a magic trick for anyone that thinks this is revolutionary…
1. buy a 20oz bottle of soda and test it’s temperature
2. put the bottle inside 2 wool socks
3. dip the whole thing in water
4. lay it out in a dry area (dry climate) to dry (re-wetting it every so offten
5. after several hours, compare the temp of the soda to the starting temp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporative_cooling#Evaporative_cooling
January 9th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
I’m sorry, I’m not sciencey at all, but surely the point here is that Emily has taken a simple design and put it to good use?
May 7th, 2009 at 2:37 am
this is not new ,,,,ages old idea still found in ‘desert coolers’ and doubled walled thermoses filled with wet hay or rags and made from anything—used in Africa and Bangla Desh.
May 7th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
Some supressed notions for fridges were solar powered, compressed gasses, working like ammonia fridges, but using concentrated solar heat during the day for fuel. Expensive to build, and technically complex, once built, have no moving parts and work as long as there is sun! Some similar ideas are found here!
SEE:http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/adam_grosser_and_his_sustainable_fridge.html
http://www.gomestic.com/Consumer-Information/Eco-Fridge-That-Uses-Zero-Electricity.285375
http://www.geekologie.com/2008/08/zero_carbon_footprint_the_sola.php
August 4th, 2009 at 8:16 am
incredible can someone send the details of the experiment