Air-cycle ice machine (Gorrie)
Máquina de hielo por aire (Gorrie)
- Date
- 1851 · confidence high
- Place
- Apalachicola, Florida, United States
- Credited to
- John Gorrie
- Field
- Life & health
What it is
Gorrie, a physician who wanted to cool yellow fever patients, built a machine that compressed air and let it expand to freeze water. He obtained the US patent in 1851 for an ice-making machine.
He failed to finance production and died ruined in 1855. The vapour-compression principle (Perkins, Harrison) proved more practical.
What it led to
- air-cycle refrigeration (ships and butchers)
- artificial cold independent of natural ice
- Joule-Brayton cycle in refrigeration