Einstein Refrigerator
en.wikipedia.org
Einstein Refrigerator
1–10 of 45 posts
Re: Einstein Refrigerator
#2This design is among many low-tech alternatives to modern appliances and processes mentioned in book The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Civilization in the Aftermath of a Cataclysm. It was not successful because of already established industry of refrigerators that were good enough. The book is excellent.
Re: Einstein Refrigerator
#3They received the equivalent of $10k for their patent. Doesn’t it cost about $25k today to file a patent?
Re: Einstein Refrigerator
#4They received the equivalent of $10k for their patent. Doesn’t it cost about $25k today to file a patent?
The cost of an external parent attorney, maybe (but even that is exaggerating). The actual cost to file and own a patent is much smaller.
Re: Einstein Refrigerator
#5It would be interesting to know the practicality of this fridge and its efficiency in relation to more conventional fridges.
Re: Einstein Refrigerator
#6This design is among many low-tech alternatives to modern appliances and processes mentioned in book The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Civilization in the Aftermath of a Cataclysm. It was not successful because of already established industry of refrigerators that were good enough. The book is excellent.
Thanks for the book, I'm adding it to my list
Re: Einstein Refrigerator
#7This design is among many low-tech alternatives to modern appliances and processes mentioned in book The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Civilization in the Aftermath of a Cataclysm. It was not successful because of already established industry of refrigerators that were good enough. The book is excellent.
According to the article the patents were bought by Electrolux. It could be this was just to block this technology from being adopted.
Re: Einstein Refrigerator
#8They received the equivalent of $10k for their patent. Doesn’t it cost about $25k today to file a patent?
I imagine Einstein, given his first job, could file a lot of the paperwork himself ;)
Re: Einstein Refrigerator
#9There's a good write-up here: https://www.wired.com/story/einsteins-little-known-passion-p...
It's a bit conspiratorial to suggest this was technology bought and buried by Big Air Conditioning
Re: Einstein Refrigerator
#10This design is among many low-tech alternatives to modern appliances and processes mentioned in book The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Civilization in the Aftermath of a Cataclysm. It was not successful because of already established industry of refrigerators that were good enough. The book is excellent.
According to the article the patents were bought by Electrolux. It could be this was just to block this technology from being adopted.
No, it has been actually deployed and is commercially sold as heat recovery chiller.
The problem is an much lower efficiency than compression refrigerators, some of which could be regained by tuning the liquids used in the system. That is not a problem when you're working with waste heat though. (E.g. solar thermal, recovery from solar concentrated, cogeneration, geothermal.) The other problem is that it has to be perfectly leak checked or it does not work at all, where in compression leakage just reduces efficiency - and there's much less piping that has to be pressure sealed.
COP of maybe 1.3 for best designs is available, compared to say 5 of a top of the line screw chiller, 7 of a rotary chiller and 3 of very good heat pump. (Maybe COP could be pushed a bit higher with exotic liquids. But the economics of this endeavor are suspect. Current top efficiency liquids are water-ammonia/lithium bromide-water dual loop. It is not safe compared to HFCs.)
It starts making sense when the installation is building sized, because maintenance is cheap compared to an electric chiller.