Air Conditioning, Through the Ages—Part Three

After the groundwork had been laid by the work of air conditioning pioneer Willis Carrier, an AC revolution was under way! The evolution of air conditioning technology has been on a steady forward trend since his times, and continues to the present day. Here’s a look at where air conditioning stands in the present day.

Eighty-six percent of American homes now have air conditioning units, and American residential AC energy use doubled between the years 1993 and 2005. By 2010, the energy use had increased by another twenty percent. As this is a fair amount of energy and a major expense for many homeowners, recent developments have focused on making air conditioners efficient and affordable.

Some progress is being made on the efficiency front. A Wichita, Kansas company recently received a patent for a system which switches between refrigeration and economizer cycles efficiently and intelligently. The system analyzes the outside atmosphere’s temperature, as well as its dew point and humidity. Some vehicular air conditioning units have had the dubious effect of causing damage by excess heat buildup. A Piscataway, New Jersey company is targeting this effect, having received a recent patent for an AC with a heating element control, designed to prevent oversaturating the heating element with energy.

Advances in efficient air conditioning are on the rise around the world, too. The Denso Corporation, based in Kariya, Japan, received a recent patent for an AC system which has a photocatalyst installed on its heat exchanger. If it functions optimally, this device will deodorize the conditioned air. Furthermore, Japanese automobile heavyweights Mitsubishi and Suzuki are at work on a sophisticated vehicular air conditioner. This vehicular AC’s temperature control would take heat caused by sunlight on each side of a car into account.

So we can see that air conditioning’s advances over time have reflected the scientific spirit of each era. The simple ice-cooling methods of antiquity seem laughably inefficient to modern eyes, but it served humanity well for centuries on end, and didn’t cost as much after the invention of ice-making machines! The industrial revolution saw rapid advances brought on by Willis Carriers’ innovations, and the present day, in which air conditioners are used almost universally in developed countries, has seen demand for increase in quality of AC units. The current scientific focus on energy efficiency and environmental protection promises rapid and exciting new advances in air conditioning—and AC World will always be at the forefront in providing the best, most affordable air conditioning we can!