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What is an evaporative refrigerator?
Flight
It is a device that uses the evaporation to cool a Food
space that can be used to store food or water. An Materials
illustration of one version is shown at right. This
Medicine
version was created by putting one earthenware pot
inside another, filling the space between them with Navigation
sand and then wetting the sand. Food is stored in Power
the inner pot which can be covered by a wet towel Shelter
or a lid. As the water evaporates from the sand, it
cools the inner pot and its contents. The whole thing Survival
is easy to build and to operate and, best of all, it is Tools
inexpensive. An added bonus is that the water used Transportation
for cooling does not need to be potable. That
sounds perfect for third world applications and it is Water
most often in this context that the device is How to build a Zeer pot blog
discussed.

How does it work?

The short answer:

When a liquid evaporates it loses energy. This is why sweating cools us down. The sweat on our skin
evaporates and it takes a bit of energy from our skin with it. This loss of energy provides us with a cooling
effect.

The more thorough explanation for why evaporation causes cooling:

Temperature is a measure of the average kinetic energy of the molecules in a substance. Sometimes the
molecules near the surface of a liquid collide just right and they provide one molecule with enough kinetic
energy to overcome the intermolecular forces in the liquid and it escapes (evaporates) from the liquid. As
more and more of these high kinetic energy molecules escape, the remaining molecules have, on average,

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lower and lower kinetic energy. This is the very definition of cooling – lower average kinetic energy.
Evaporation slows down as the liquid gets cooler because the molecules have less average kinetic energy
and they don’t collide ‘just right’ as often. So evaporation will only cool the liquid so much before the process
slows to a stop.

Is there a cooling limit?

The short answer:

Evaporative cooling is limited by the current wet bulb temperature. No matter how much liquid evaporates or
how fast it evaporates the minimum temperature that can be reached by direct evaporation is the wet bulb
temperature. A wet bulb temperature is an indication of the amount of water vapor (relative humidity) in the
air.

The more thorough explanation:

Imagine water in a jar where the higher energy water molecules near the surface of the liquid are escaping
into the air above the water. If we put a lid on the jar, the water molecules will continue to accumulate and
sometimes the collisions of these molecules will result in the molecule leaving the air and returning to the
liquid water. If the jar is left alone, eventually the activity will equalize. The average energy of the molecules
leaving the liquid will equal the average energy of the molecules returning to the liquid. This equilibrium is
what we would call 100% relative humidity. The energy lost to evaporation is equal to the energy gained from
condensation. You can determine how close you are to the equilibrium point by taking the wet bulb
temperature of the air and comparing it to the dry bulb temperature of the air. If the wet bulb temperature is
lower, it indicates that there is still room for molecules to transfer from the liquid into the air.

Let’s express the limits in a more visual manner

These charts show the minimum temperature that can be achieved by direct evaporation for a given
temperature and relative humidity. These numbers came from a psychrometric chart. The chart lists the wet
bulb temperature for various conditions. If you managed to achieve 100% efficiency with your evaporative
refrigerator, this would be the coldest it could get.

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9/27/2019 Build an evaporative refrigerator - no moving parts, no electricity | Rebuilding Civilization

So if it is 90°F (32.2°C) outside and the relative humidity is 50% then coldest a direct evaporative refrigerator
could possibly get is 74°F (23.3°C). That is much better than no cooling at all but far less than what we
expect with our modern day refrigerators which keep food at 40°F (4.4°C) or below. On the other hand, the
device is inexpensive, easy to build and operate.

I use the word ‘direct’ evaporative cooling because there exists another type of evaporative cooling called
indirect cooling. It involves feeding an evaporative cooler air that has already been chilled by another
evaporative cooler. So it is possible to get evaporative coolers to temperatures below that of the wet bulb. At
that point, we are talking about a much more complex device and not a simple pot in pot refrigerator.

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What about using different designs or materials?

Let’s look at the various parts of the evaporative refrigerator:

The liquid: Water is the most practical liquid to use for evaporation. It is readily available and it removes a
large amount of heat per kilogram of evaporation as compared to other liquids. For a practical refrigerator, it is
really the only liquid that makes sense.

Container materials: The container for the food can be any material that conducts heat. Materials that
conduct heat better will cool down faster but the will also heat up faster when the evaporation stops. It is
probably a good idea for the container to be waterproof so that the food is saturated with the water that is
used for cooling. The outer container exists just to hold water for evaporation and to provide as much surface
area for cooling as possible. That means is needs to be porous so that the water can seep through it and
evaporate.

Material to hold the liquid: Sand is often used because it is inexpensive and it has a large surface area. But
it could be sponges, charcoal or another material. The most important features are that it holds lots of water
and provides surface area for evaporation.

Shape: The shape of the container should have lots of surface area as compared to its volume. The rate of
evaporation is driven by factors such as temperature, air flow and the surface area. Surface area is the only
factor that can be controlled as the device is being built. The idea is to maximize surface area and minimize
internal volume. The tetrahedron meets that criteria but it isn’t as practical to build as the more spherical
shapes.

Size: The larger the container becomes the worse its surface area to volume ratio gets. This means there is
less surface area (less cooling) per volume of cooled area. This chart from Wikipedia shows that a cube with
sides of 1 meter would be much better than a cube with sides of 10 meters. So it would be better to have
several small devices than one large device in terms of performance of the cooler.

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How to get the best performance:

Often people will suggest putting them in the

sun so that the water evaporates more
quickly. That will work as long as the
additional cooling from evaporation is greater
than the temperature gain of the device sitting
in the sun. Probably more often than not,
placing the device in the shade (preferably in a
nice breeze) will be the best way to improve
performance. If you can elevate the device to
get evaporation on all sides that would be
even better. The device cannot run out of
liquid or the cooling stops. That means it
either needs a large water reservoir or it will
need to be filled frequently.

Other ideas about burying them or placing

them inside another pot are sure ways to slow
down or stop evaporation. At some point,
trying to improve the performance of the
device starts interfering with the utility and durability of the device. The evaporation rate is largely controlled
by the temperature, relative humidity and wind speed.

Final Word:

Evaporative coolers are a neat idea and when used in the correct environments they can provide much
needed cooling for very little cost. Just make sure your expectations are reasonable. They will very rarely
manage to keep temperatures as cool as our modern refrigerators. Warmer temperatures and less storage
space are part of the trade-off for their low cost and simplicity.

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Comments

Another link
Permalink Submitted by markus1463 on Sun, 11/03/2013 - 11:17.

Hello,
In regard to you stating elevating the device would be better, this website uses iron stands to elevate the
pots, increasing airflow.

practicalaction.org/zeer-pot-fridge

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9/27/2019 Build an evaporative refrigerator - no moving parts, no electricity | Rebuilding Civilization

Is this what you mean by elevating the device?

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Yes. Getting it off the

Permalink Submitted by Ron Sanders on Sat, 11/09/2013 - 09:33.

Yes. Getting it off the ground should help with air flow and speed up evaporation.

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