Refrigeration

Refrigeration is any of various types of cooling of a space, substance, or system to lower and/or maintain its temperature below the ambient one (while the removed heat is ejected to a place of higher temperature).^[1][2] Refrigeration is an artificial, or human-made, cooling method.^[1][2]

Refrigeration refers to the process by which energy, in the form of heat, is removed from a low-temperature medium and transferred to a high-temperature medium.^[3][4] This work of energy transfer is traditionally driven by mechanical means (whether ice or electromechanical machines), but it can also be driven by heat, magnetism, electricity, laser, or other means. Refrigeration has many applications, including household refrigerators, industrial freezers, cryogenics, and air conditioning.^[5][6][7] Heat pumps may use the heat output of the refrigeration process, and also may be designed to be reversible, but are otherwise similar to air conditioning units.^[5]

Refrigeration has had a large impact on industry, lifestyle, agriculture, and settlement patterns.^[8] The idea of preserving food dates back to human prehistory, but for thousands of years humans were limited regarding the means of doing so. They used curing via salting and drying, and they made use of natural coolness in caves, root cellars, and winter weather, but other means of cooling were unavailable. In the 19th century, they began to make use of the ice trade to develop cold chains.^[9] In the late 19th through mid-20th centuries, mechanical refrigeration was developed, improved, and greatly expanded in its reach.^[3] Refrigeration has thus rapidly evolved in the past century, from ice harvesting to temperature-controlled rail cars, refrigerator trucks, and ubiquitous refrigerators and freezers in both stores and homes in many countries. The introduction of refrigerated rail cars contributed to the settlement of areas that were not on earlier main transport channels such as rivers, harbors, or valley trails.

These new settlement patterns sparked the building of large cities which are able to thrive in areas that were otherwise thought to be inhospitable, such as Houston, Texas, and Las Vegas, Nevada. In most developed countries, cities are heavily dependent upon refrigeration in supermarkets in order to obtain their food for daily consumption.^[10] The increase in food sources has led to a larger concentration of agricultural sales coming from a smaller percentage of farms.^[11] Farms today have a much larger output per person in comparison to the late 1800s.^[12][11] This has resulted in new food sources available to entire populations, which has had a large impact on the nutrition of society.