Review: Recent advances in household refrigerator cycle technologies

This paper comprehensively reviews household refrigerator technologies including current cycle options and future not-in-kind options. Most of the refrigerators are based on a vapor compression cycle (VCC), so that its options are reviewed and compared. The refrigerator cycles based on the VCC are categorized in three groups: dual evaporator cycles, expansion loss recovery cycles, and multi-stage cycles. For dual evaporator cycles, several methods of applying two evaporators are presented. For the expansion loss recovery cycle, ejector and expander cycles are explained. For multi-stage cycles, two-stage cycle and dual-loop cycle are mainly discussed. Moreover, refrigerants as a working fluid are reviewed. Lastly, not-in-kind technologies that are not based on the VCC, such as an absorption, thermoelectric, magnetic, thermoacoustic, and thermoelastic are presented for the application of domestic refrigerators. Even though they have not been widely used for household refrigerators due to insufficient reliability and lower performance, their potential is discussed.