Fun Fact #343 Fire and Ice

Fun Fact #343

Fire and Ice

Propane has been around commercially since 1910, and is made as a byproduct of refining Oil. Thanks to this secondary nature production can not be easily ramped up to meet increased demand, but thankfully it can be stored near indefinitely in the right conditions. One such location is in the Salt Cavern of Conway, Kansas where more than 80,000,000 propane barrels are stored.
Today propane is used in the Cooking, automotive, and chemical industries but recently another field has appeared: Refrigeration. The way this works is, they use a bunsen burner running off propane to heat a container of ammonia and water. Here the ammonia reacts with the hydrogen creating a low pressure gas with the ability to absorb great amounts of heat. This Vapor is then cycled through the refrigerator’s cooling chamber. Then on the other side, the vapor is pressurized in more water causing the ammonia to get trapped while the free hydrogen travels up a pipe to bond with oxygen to create more water so the cycle can repeat. All-in-all the concept of using a fire to chill your fridge is pretty cool. ❄️

    Thanks for reading and please have a wonderful weekend!

Image is from: AC Service Tech LLC on Youtube.