Refrigerator & Air Conditioner | Working & Parts [Difference & Similarity]

What is Refrigerator?

Technically a Refrigerator is known as heat pump (Since it sucks heat from one place and throw it to some other place).

But in general terms. A refrigerator is a device that maintains temperature of a place below ambient (or room) temperature. The heat extracted is given away to atmosphere.

But how this complex task (of reducing temperature) is done?

To understand this let’s move on to components and working of the refrigerator.

Components and Working

A refrigerator is composed of four main components, which are responsible for its working. These are Evaporator, Compressor, Condenser and Expansion Valve. Let us discuss each of these components one by one.

Evaporator

An evaporator (generally coil shaped) is the part of refrigerator where the cooling takes place. Evaporator sucks heat from the place where we want to maintain the temperature and transfers it to refrigerant.

Compressor

After taking heat from evaporator, refrigerant reaches compressor where it gets compressed and due to compression its temperature increases.

Condenser

A condenser looks similar to evaporator. Refrigeration fluid with temperature reaches condenser (which may be either water cooled or air cooled). Here its temperature is reduced to the ambient temperature (heat which is sucked from the room or closed space is given away to atmosphere at condenser).

Expansion Valve

After condenser refrigerant comes to expansion valve (which is basically a throttling device). Here the pressure of refrigerant is decreased, which results in decreasing the temperature of refrigerant below atmospheric temperature. This cooled refrigerant is then supplied to Evaporator, this cycle runs on and on.

Working Cycle of refrigerator and air conditioner

Modern day refrigerators works on vapour compression cycle. You can easily co-relate its diagram with the explanation given above.

Difference between Refrigerator and Air conditioner

Though basically Refrigerators and Air Conditioners (summer) are fundamentally same (Both maintain temperature of a place below ambient), but the difference lies in their uses and working. Let us understand the differences in tabular method.

Base of Comparison	Refrigerator	Air conditioner
Place of use	Used where we need to cool commodity, like vegetables, fruits, etc.	Used where living beings wants to maintain atmospheric comfort level. like temperature, humidity etc.
Working	No air circulation is required to be maintained	Air circulation is required to be maintained
Humidity	No Humidity is required to be maintained	Humidity is required to be maintained
Fresh air circulation	Not required	Required
Load	Working load is generally low	Working load is generally high
Working Cycle	Vapour compression cycle	Vapour compression cycle

In all we can say an Air conditioner is a refrigerator which is meant for cooling a room with a provision of circulating fresh air and maintaining a comfortable level of Humidity.

Image sources [Date:11-12-2018]

Image 01:

Image URL: https://www.flickr.com/photos/44587707@N04/11089440916

Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0

Image 02:

Attribution: By Winfried Recker – GEA Refrigeration Technologies GmbH, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15699191

Image 03:

Attribution: By H Padleckas – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28321352

Image 04:

Attribution: By Neurotronix – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8015906

Image 05:

Attribution: By Original uploader was Keenan Pepper at en.wikipedia – Originally from en.wikipedia; description page is/was here., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1393091