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There is no simple answer as to who invented the refrigerator, as it was the culmination of a number of different inventors and scientists. Without the breakthroughs that people before them had accomplished, we might not have the device that today is known as the refrigerator, one of the most trusted appliances that we could include in our home. To understand how the refrigerator came to be, however, we may have to take the time to examine all of the people who had a hand in this invention coming to be.

The study of the refrigerator starts in the middle of the 18th Century, when William Cullen of the University of Glasgow invented an artificial means of cooling. This breakthrough in 1748 proved to be a method which could be applied to a number of different applications. The problem, though, is that at that time, no one was interested in using this method in application to bettering the home environment.

The scientific community, on the other hand, felt that this was a huge breakthrough. They continued to study this phenomenon, although it would be nearly another 100 years before a working refrigerator model would be constructed. Meantime, however, in 1804, the design schematics were constructed by an American inventor called Oliver Evans. These were simply the plans, however, as no model was ever attempted to be built.

In 1834, Jacob Perkins worked on constructing the first refrigeration machine known in the world, although it wouldn’t be considered successful until 10 years later, when John Gorrie built what people feel is the first actual refrigerator machine. Gorrie was a doctor in the United States who was accustomed to applying treatments to patients with the yellow fever.

Gorrie’s practice was to chill the air in the rooms where people suffering from the fever could rest and work on recovering. When he took the same principles applied to the treatment of those rooms and applied it to the box where food was kept, the first serious refrigerator model was produced. This is the model that eventually came to be known as a modern refrigerator.

The most serious breakthrough came, however in 1876 with the influence of Carl von Linden. This German engineer found an effective means of liquefying gases. After patenting this method, von Linden gained the ability to make the manufacturing power of refrigerators into something feasible.

Carl von Linden’s practice would take different gases like sulfur dioxide, ammonia, and methyl chloride. By combining these gases, von Linden found a suitable way to change these gases into liquids and work on chilling the air in the appliance itself. Without this discovery, no refrigerator may have ever been successfully designed and the question of who invented the refrigerator would be an unnecessary one.

The combination of these gases was not always safe, however. This is why in the late 1920s, refrigerator manufacturers switched to the use of Freon. This gas was more stable and would be used in a number of products. This fact has only lately changed, as leaking Freon has done a great deal of damage to the ozone layer and is partly causing an environmental meltdown.

The gas compounds used in refrigerators has since changed, using a safer compound which will still compress and heat up, working to chill the air inside the refrigerator. This is a necessary adjustment, as the continued use of Freon would only continue to damage the environment in serious ways. It allows us to not only continue to have refrigeration in our homes, but it will keep us safe and use less energy anyway.

It is important to realize that this technology has largely been built up using different advancements over the past hundreds of years. It has taken a long time to understand the scientific properties of gases and other chemicals, making it necessary to move slowly so that the highest level of safety is maintained. This not only helps the scientists out, but it will ensure that once we have a refrigerator in our home, we will be able to rely on its safety.

Answering who invented the refrigerator will be a difficult question, for you must stop to consider what you are meaning by the term “invent.” Without the breakthroughs of a number of scientists, from William Cullen to John Gorrie or Carl von Linden, we would not have the efficient technology used to keep our refrigerators running smoothly today. Therefore, we must respect the fact that many different inventors and all of their efforts were used to build the modern refrigerator. One can only wonder how they may be improved in the future.