THE HOT FRIDGE
by Jill Fehrenbacher, 08/31/05
This made the rounds on the blogosphere a couple of days ago, but in case you missed it, the Hot Fridge is an experimental refrigerator design by RCA student Hae-jin Kim, which makes use of the heat waste released from the refrigerator cooling process. Most normal (ie inefficient) refrigerators release heat out the back while they cool items inside.
In the ingenious little Hot Fridge, the condenser is placed at the top, allowing you to both cool and heat food at the same time. The designer suggests that one can warm plates, warm-up leftovers, or simply keep hot food hot on top of the Hot Fridge. What I wonder is: could this be turned into a mini stove top? Could this eventually evolve into a 2-for-1 refrigerator/stove? Will someone (ahem, GE) please hire this designer pronto?
I want to be able to buy this at Sears next year!
Hot plate not exactly plausable.
Refridgeration setup:
Compressor -> Condenser -> Expansion -> Evaporator -> start
Ok, there’s maths involved here, but I’ll lay it down real simple: The difference in extremes of temperature between the condenser and evaporator are controlled by two factors: the gas used and the amount of compression used.
No gas is available to make that plate get any hotter than about 150 degrees; At least, not without making the fridge into a freezer. Meanwhile, the temperature of air blowing into the inside of the unit would vary wildly from slightly above near-freezing, all the way down to freezing alcohol. In other words, using it as a controlled heat source renders it useless as an ice box.
Meanwhile, there’s no reason you couldn’t use the condensation end as a pre-heat feed into your water heater (or, in addition to an ice/cold water dispenser on the fridge’s front, have a hot water dispenser) making use of the waste heat as needed, and leaving control in the hands of the fridge’s internal needs.