Preliminary evaluation of the energy-saving behavior of a novel household refrigerator

The refrigerator is one of the most essential domestic appliances and causes considerable energy consumption every year. The efficiency of a normal household refrigerator is significantly affected by the heat-insulating property of the thermal barrier of the freezer due to its low inner temperature. In this study, a novel refrigerator with a loop thermosyphon is put forward to decrease the heat transfer between the freezer and ambient air. It has great potential to be popularized as a sustainable energy technology or applied in the renewable energy field considering its significant energy-saving effect, simple structure, and low cost. The energy-saving behavior of the refrigerator is preliminarily evaluated based on the theoretical calculation. The temperatures of ambient, the fresh food compartment, and the location of the heat transport component are varied; the impacts are analyzed. The total cold loss of the topside and side freezer walls is reduced from 16 W to 14 W in the normal test conditions, and the energy-saving ratio varies from 6.3% to 28.5% when the ambient temperature, the location of the heat transport component, and the fresh food compartment temperature vary. The results certificate the energy-saving capability of the novel refrigerator and its reliability in hot climate.