A Semiconductor-Based Refrigeration System for Cooling of Water: Design, Construction, and Performance Tests

Abstract

Convectional refrigeration is one of the causes of global warming as carbon dioxide is emitted from its refrigerant to the environment. Semiconductor-based refrigeration is one of the alternative technologies that can lower the carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere as it uses electron gas instead of a refrigerant as its working fluid. The present work aims to design and construct a semiconductor-based refrigerator and test its performance. The refrigerator was designed to cool 4×10-3 m-3 of water from a temperature of 30℃ to 0℃. The tests performed on the refrigerator were retention time of the temperature of the water, change in the water temperature at different intervals of time, and the cooling rate of the water. The results of the tests indicated that the temperature of the water dropped from its initial value of 30℃ to 0℃ after 225 minutes, and maintained the temperature of 0℃ for 15 minutes. After the refrigerator was switched off, the temperature of 0℃ was retained for approximately 30 minutes, and then took 192 minutes to rise from 0℃ to its initial value of 30℃. The average cooling rate for the duration of 225 minutes was 0.133℃/min. The current work widens the studies on the use of alternative technologies for convectional refrigeration.