Soon, a fridge that uses half the juice

It’s hard to get too excited about a refrigerator, unless it’s filled with cold beer, but that is definitely good news. European scientists working with BASF have found a way to assemble a conventional-style fridge that only uses half the electricity of today’s models. OK, it might not be as green as Mohammed Bah Abba’s electricity-free refrigerator — which only requires 2 metal pots and wet sand — but that new BASF thingamajig might plus be a little more practical.

Up until now, refrigerators have relied on Freon (which worked pretty

well, but ate the ozone) or a much less effective coolant (that due lots more electricity to do the same job). The new magic fridge uses a new CFC-free cooling scheme that bypasses these nasty chemicals, using alloys and magnetic fields. I won’t pretend to know how it works, just that the magnetic fields heat up the alloy particles, and as they cool down presto — you get refrigeration. Scientists working on the technology say it could easily be used in other applications like your A/C. Nice.

[via ENN]

[Source] Josh Loposer

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