The Science | How it works
What is a fridge?
- A fridge makes and keeps food cold and cool. A lower temperature.
- Temperature means how hot or cold something is (aka amount of Thermal Energy).
- Cold temperatures help food stay fresh longer.
Any fridge can do these things by using a method called Refrigeration.
What is Refrigeration?
- Refrigeration is a method to keeps things cold.
- It makes something cold by taking the heat away from it and moving it somewhere else.
Bottle of ICE example
A bottle of water has been put in a freezer and had some of its heat removed. This has made the water become ICE. The reason it melts is because the ice cube takes heat from your hand. This makes the ice cube warmer (and your hand feels colder).
This is similar to what happens inside a fridge. When the food goes inside it is warmer than it needs to be (it needs less heat). The fridge takes the heat from the food and pushes it to the outside of the fridge. This is why the back of a fridge is warm… Weird huh?!
Fridges actually heat up your kitchen while they cool the food inside!
Why is refrigeration important?
So… we know that Refrigeration keeps our food fresh for longer. In our houses, in supermarkets, in refrigerated lorries, warehouses, factories and farms. But Refrigeration is about more than just Fridges.
- Refrigeration is also what makes Air Conditioning feel cold too.
- Refrigeration means Medicines can be kept cold so they work properly in hot countries.
- Refrigeration helps the Internet to work; there are lots of huge super-computers all around the world that have to be kept cold.
- Even the International Space Station needs to be kept cold to keep working.
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