What is the difference between an air conditioner and a

refrigerator?
Refrigeration refers to processes that take thermal energy away from a place and gives off
that energy to a place with a higher temperature. Naturally, thermal energy flows from a
place with a higher temperature to a place with a lower temperature. Therefore,
refrigeration runs against the natural heat flow and so it requires work to be
done.Refrigerator is a name that we use for devices that are used to keep food at low
temperatures. A refrigerator consists of a fluid called refrigerantwhich gets expanded and
compressed in a cycle:
1. When refrigerant enters the compressor, the refrigerant is compressed
adiabatically. This raises the temperature of the refrigerant.
2. Then, the hot refrigerant is sent into the condenser under high pressure,
which is typically a tube outside the refrigerator. Here, the temperature of the
refrigerant is higher than the temperature of the surroundings. So, the
refrigerant gives off heat to the surroundings and gets condensed into a liquid. If
you touch the tubes at the back of a refrigerator, it feels hot because you are
feeling the heat given out by the condenser.
3. Next, the refrigerant goes through an expansion valve, where the pressure of
the refrigerant is lowered. The refrigerant expands here, evaporating and
cooling down.
4. The refrigerant now enters the evaporator, which is a set of tubes inside the
refrigerator. At this stage, the refrigerant is at a temperature lower than the
temperature of the air inside the refrigerator. Now, the refrigerant draws
in heat from inside the refrigerator. This is how heat is removed from inside a
refrigerator.
Once the refrigerant goes through the evaporator, it is sent again into the compressor and
the cycle continues repeatedly.

Air conditioning is a type of refrigeration where thermal energy is taken away from the air in
a large space such as a room or a vehicle. Air conditioners are fitted into rooms so that they
cool the air inside them. Air conditioners also reduce humidity in rooms, because the water
vapour in the room can condense around the colder parts of the air conditioner. The
condensed water can be then drained off.
PART-2

Air conditioners work in the same way as refrigerators. The primary difference between
an air conditioner and a refrigerator is that air conditioners are not only concerned
with maintaining the temperature of the air; they also help to regulate
humidity and filte the air. Air conditioners also consist of fans in order to circulate air,
so that the hot air comes into contact with the evaporator at a faster rate.
In many ways air conditioning and refrigeration systems are very similar. Both use specially
designed chemicals, the physical effects of the compression and expansion of gases, and the
conversion of gas to liquid to reduce the temperature of air. The varying uses of these
systems, however, mean refrigeration and air conditioning systems have a handful of key
differences in the design and operation.
Supply
A major difference between refrigeration and air conditioning is the point of
supply for the gases. Refrigeration systems have gas installed in a series of
tubes. In old refrigerators, this gas was chloro-flouro-carbon, or CFC, but this
has harmful effects on people, so refrigerators not contain HFC-134a. HFC-134a
is the sole gas used as a coolant in refrigeration systems. Air conditioning
systems use built-in chemicals, but also air from the room or rooms being

heated. Gases built into air conditioning units cool air that circulates through
the unit; the unit then redistributes the cooled air through the room.
Circulation
Air conditioners have circulation systems designed to project cool air away from
the units while refrigeration units have circulation systems designed to retain
coolant in a confined space. Refrigeration systems circulate cool liquids and
gases through a series of tubes and vents. Cool air from within a refrigerator is
sucked into a compressor that recycles the gas through the tubes. Air
conditioners, while also employing tubes in the coolant system, have fans for the
dispersal of air. Unlike refrigeration systems, which keep gases contained to a
pre-determined space, air conditioning systems disperse cool air throughout
areas of unknown volume.

Vaporization
Both air conditioning and refrigeration units depend on converting liquid to gas
in the cooling process, but the manner in which they achieve this is different for
each system. Air conditioners use something called an evaporator to convert a
liquid to a gas. An evaporator is a small, narrow hole designed to change the
pressure of a liquid so that it evaporates. Refrigeration units, on the other hand,
cycle HFC into a low-pressure chamber designed to boil the gas. This boiling
causes HFC to vaporize. Vaporization is the process of converting a liquid to a
gas and can be accomplished one of two ways: boiling or evaporation. Thus air
conditioning units vaporize liquid through evaporation while refrigeration
systems do so through boiling.