Saving Energy and Your Carbon Footprint with Future Fridges
It’s very interesting to see what the future holds, and when it comes to home appliances many of the leading manufacturers are looking for ways in which to improve how their products work so that they will be more efficient in the future. One way of doing this is by holding design competitions in order to attract interest and ideas from some of the young up-and-coming scientific brains to see what innovations they can come up with. Over the last 12 months there have been two such competitions that have looked at the future of refrigeration. Here’s some more details, and might offer a glimpse into the future of home fridge freezer products.
Electrolux Design Lab Competition
Electrolux held a competition with the brief being to come up with a prediction on how home owners would store their food in the year 2050. One entry came from a young Russian industrial engineer called Yuriy Dmitriev who came up with a Bio-Polymer Gel fridge. It sounds wacky, and in truth it probably is, but there is some method to the madness.
Essentially it works by the concept of a future gel fridge that lets home owners store food stuffs inside it – and that’s because there is gel inside the door with small individual pods inside it. This means that you no longer need to use shelves – you just push your food into the gel.
The biopolymer gel will suspend and keep food cool and will save energy because there will be no need for a cooling motor which uses a lot of electricity making it very economical and ec0-friendly. Standard fridge freezers tend to use around eight per cent of household energy bills so this could let to a reduction of energy use over time.
EcoFridge Competition by Mabe
The second initiative was a competition by the South American company Mabe who asked students to design a fridge that would use less energy than average models. Design students at Berkeley came up with an idea that centered around a thermal battery being used. This would mean that it would only charge during night-time hours when typically energy charges are far less.
Want More Information on Eco-Fridges?
The excellent Refrigerator Reviews 4 U website has more news on eco-fridges and new developments coming onto the refrigeration market. Keep an eye on their articles section which is constantly updated with news on the future of fridges and how manufacturers are looking for ways in which to save energy and reduce the average household carbon foot print.