Even if each time the words ‘solar refrigerator’ come in the news it sounds like a groundbreaking story, truth is the idea of using heat to create cold is pretty old. A French inventor came up with a concept to do this as far back as 1858, there are records that show a machine prototype from 1935, and the concept of evaporative cooling has been widely explored, as Lloyd notes in a previous article.

However, it’s always interesting to see new prototypes. This one comes from South America and is based on adsorption, using methane as gas and active carbon as the absorbent solid material. Get the details and larger pics in the extended.