Successfully created a non-electric refrigerator

Group of Canadian students successfully developed a chiller without electricity, capable of preserving fresh food.

Successfully manufactured chillers without electricity

"We want to reduce the amount of food waste in the world, so we designed this refrigerator because it's easy to make and the material is cheap," said Michelle Zhou, a student in the group. Studying at the University of Calgary, said.

The device operates on the principle of evaporative cooling , consisting of a coil winding pipe, placed in a water evaporator chamber. A side evaporator connected to the intake manifold, one connected to an insulated chiller, where food is stored. The air is drawn into the evaporation chamber through the funnel according to the Venturi effect . The upper section of the funnel is large, so the air pressure will be large, the back pipe section is smaller, so the pressure is small. Pressure differential pushes air outward from the tube.

Because all the fittings outside the evaporator and chillers are buried underground, the temperature is slightly lower when it comes to the evaporator. In the evaporator, the evaporation of water will reduce the air temperature in the copper tube. Evaporation is accelerated by a small fan, powered by a solar cell. The air after cooling will move through the buried underground pipe to enter the cooling chambers where food is stored.

The next step of the group will be to improve the design so that it can keep the temperature in the chiller stable at 4.5 degrees Celsius, the temperature of food preservation. This is a design that won the first prize in the Global Biomimetics Design Competition 2015 , asking researchers to bring improvements to the global food system, based on natural principles. .

"About one-quarter to one-half of world food is wasted every year, and 70 percent of rural Africans live in a shortage of electricity," said Jorge Zapote, head of research at CBC News. "Our current design still uses a bit of electricity from the solar cell, but in the future it will not need electricity in the future, and it will be very useful to people in power shortages."