Air Conditioning and Refrigeration
{"Image DocumentName": "Air Conditioning and Refrigeration", "Image ImageDescription": "Market forces and other concerns continued to drive innovations. Led by Thomas Midgley, chemical engineers at Frigidaire solved the dangerous problem of toxic, flammable refrigerants\u2014which had been known to leak, with fatal consequences\u2014by synthesizing the world s first chlorofluorocarbon, to which they gave the trademarked name Freon. It was the perfect refrigerant, so safe that at a demonstration before the American Chemical Society in 1930 Midgley inhaled a lungful of the stuff and then used it to blow out a candle. In the late 1980s, however, chlorofluorocarbons were found to be contributing to the destruction of Earth s protective ozone layer. Production of these chemicals was phased out and the search for a replacement began. At about the same time Frigidaire was introducing Freon it also turned its attention to the other side of the mechanical refrigeration business: air conditioning. Comfort cooling for the home had been hampered by the fact that air conditioners tended to be bulky affairs that had been designed specifically for large-scale applications such as factories, theaters, and the like. In 1928 Carrier introduced the Weathermaker, the first practical home air conditioner, but because the company s main business was still commercial, it was slow to turn to the smaller-scale designs that residential applications required. Frigidaire, on the other hand, was ready to apply the same expertise in engineering and manufacturing that had allowed it to mass produce\u2014literally by the millions\u2014the low-cost, small-sized refrigerators that were already a fixture in most American homes. In 1929 the company introduced the first commercially successful room cooler, and a familiar list of challengers\u2014Kelvinator, GE, and this time Carrier\u2014quickly took up the gauntlet. Window units came first, then central whole-house systems. Without leaving home, Americans could now escape everything from the worst humid summers of the Northeast and Midwest to the year-round thermometer-busting highs of the South and desert Southwest. Witold Kwa\u015bnicki (INE, UWr), Notatki do wyk\u0142ad\u00f3w.", "Image XResolution": "37", "Image YResolution": "37", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Centimeter", "Image Software": "SlidePlayer", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered"}