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Applications for refrigeration technology

This is where you can find everything you need to know about the many different potential applications and the key importance of refrigeration technology in various aspects of life and industry.

Circle with the different applications of refrigeration technology — Illustration of "Refrigeration at a Glance” showing detailed areas of application

Refrigeration technology has grown from its early applications in keeping food and drink cool to become a key technology that is now an essential part of our lives. Firstly, refrigeration technology serves to improve living and environmental conditions, and secondly many commercial and industrial manufacturing processes would no longer be conceivable in its absence. Environmental and climate protection are growing increasingly important.

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The challenge of global food security can only be met with comprehensive cold chains and sufficient refrigerated and frozen storage facilities. Depending on a given country’s level of industrialization, foodstuff losses may reach 20 to 40 percent of total production, and for fruit and vegetables in developing countries this figure may be as high as 60 to 80 percent.

One key area of refrigeration technology is to keep food fresh. The use of regular refrigeration and deep-freezing technologies ensures ideal storage conditions for food such as meat, fish, vegetables and dairy products, which helps to ensure a considerably longer shelf life and preservation of nutritional values. Innovative processes such as freeze-drying also make it possible to store particular foods for an extended period even without refrigeration.
In addition to keeping food fresh, refrigeration technology is also essential for the production of many foodstuffs. For example, it plays an important part in the production of beer, milk, chocolate, margarine and ice cream.
In the area of air-conditioning, refrigeration is used to create comfortable room temperatures. Air-conditioning systems in offices, residential buildings and vehicles significantly improve quality of life. The use of heat pumps is particularly important in this area. These devices use the principle of refrigeration technology in order to heat residential and office buildings in a way that is both efficient and environmentally friendly. They allow indoor heating with no exhaust gases and low or zero emissions, and can also be used to prepare hot water and keep rooms cool.

Refrigeration technology is an essential element in many industrial processes. A showcase example is the production of ice, in which water or dry ice is used as a cooling medium. This method is especially beneficial when it is not practical to use refrigeration systems directly, for example in the refrigerated transport of foodstuffs.
In the chemical industry, refrigeration can be used to separate gas and fluid mixtures, to draw off reaction heat and to crystallize salts. Refrigeration technology is also vital in the mineral oil industry, to deparaffinize oils in the manufacture of high-grade fuels and lubricants, for example.
A growing field of application is the liquefaction of gases, especially low-boiling gases such as oxygen, hydrogen and helium. These gases are essential in steel production, space travel and the development of superconducting materials. Refrigeration technology also plays a key role in the liquefaction and transportation of natural gas, which is increasingly being used as a low-emission fuel and to generate heat.

In addition to the main applications described above, there are many specialized areas of application for refrigeration, such as:

Shrinking metals to ensure perfectly fitting connections
Cooling during metalworking to extend tool service life
Shredding of scrap iron for recycling processes
Cooling of concrete in dams to prevent cracking
Sinking shafts and tunnels by freezing the ground
Commercial cleaning using dry ice to ensure environmentally friendly processes
Cooling of bobsled runs, ice rinks, snow machines and skiing halls to create ideal conditions
Recovery of fresh water from seawater as a field of application that could play a crucial role in regions where water is scarce.

In the area of medicine and biology, there are many applications for refrigeration technology, from preservation of blood and refrigerated transport of organs through to cryosurgery, in which cold is used selectively for precise, minimally invasive surgical procedures.

The future of refrigeration technology

Refrigeration technology is an essential element in modern technological systems which extends far beyond mere cooling. Continuous refinement will ensure it continues to play a key role in the future, both in existing areas and innovatively in new applications, from food safety to environmental protection, industrial production and energy saving. As an efficient application for heating in rooms and buildings, heat pumps offer significant potential for a sustainable and environmentally friendly future.

Find our exciting information about heat pumps in our Expert Insights: Heat Pumps.