Past, present and future of refrigeration: Pathways to the next generation heating and cooling technologies

Abstract

In approximately 150 years, the refrigeration industry, meaning the broad context of heating, cooling and refrigeration applications, profoundly impacted human daily activities. From ice harvesting during the 19th century, to initial research on artificial refrigeration conducted by W. Cullen, to well-known scientists, chemists and engineers B. Franklin, J. Hadley, J. Perkins, F. Carre, and C. von Linde, among others, refrigeration technologies experienced transformational improvements, whose fundamental principles are still in use today. The “Miracle Substances” initially introduced by Thomas Midgley et al. in the 1930s, which were then further developed to mitigate environmental concerns, enabled modern refrigeration and heat pumping systems, as well as organic Rankine cycles for power generation from renewable and waste heat sources. Despite the tremendous positive impacts on lifestyle, nutrition, personal comfort, healthcare, industrial and transportation activities in general, the refrigeration industry still faces numerous challenges. These include the future use of working fluids, further increasing energy efficiency, developing sustainable technologies, and developing reliable and efficient energy storage. This work proposes a journey from an initial historical review of refrigeration to modern technologies with an emphasis on heating and cooling applications. Key aspects of vapor compression cycles, sorption systems, gas cycles, solid-state system and other “exotic” cycles will be highlighted to provide a perspective on potential research direction to design the next-generation heating, cooling and refrigeration technologies.