Credits – 2
Title – Physics in Action
Introduction
The refrigerator is a common household appliance that is an essential food storage technique in developed countries; it is made up of compartments which are thermally insulated and also has a heat pump which can be mechanical, electronic or chemical. The heat pump is a device which transfers heat from the interior of the fridge to an external environment, this means that the fridge is cooled to a temperature which is below the ambient temperature of the room that it is in. the refrigerator lowers the temperatures in a confined volume which therefore lowers the reproduction rate of bacteria, this means that the bacteria will not be able to effect the food as quickly and the rate of spoilage for the food inside the fridge will decrease.
Optimum Storage Temperature.
The optimum food storage temperature for common foods is 3 to 5 …show more content…
A basic insulator is any material that slows the transfer of heat, common insulators use vacant space as their insulation, this means that there can be gas between the insulators which slows the transfer of heat, gases are quite useful to use insulation as they are not very dense. Most insulators have pockets of air between layers.
Refrigerators have many different types of insulation, depending of what type of refrigerator it is the insulators could be a vacuum, Styrofoam or a type of fibreglass, these insulators help keep the outside of the fridge warm and the inside cold to slow the spoilage rate. The insulators help this process because they prevent the heat from coming in and the cold from escaping. The heat stays outside the refrigerator because the heat travels through the movement of atoms in the substance, because there is a greater space between atoms (the gas); the heat has a harder time getting through the substance which is the