An air conditioner may be one of the best inventions of mankind, but very few people know about the basic working of this fine creation. Many people tend to think that air conditioners simply blow cool air into the room. What actually happens is that the air conditioner sucks in the warm air from your room and converts it into cool air that is blown back inside the room and thus a hot room is converted into a cool one. This cycle is repeated until the desired room temperature that you have set on the thermostat is reached.

If you observe closely, there isn’t much difference between a refrigerator and an air conditioner except for the insulated box, which is missing in the air conditioner. In this case, the room becomes the box and is thus cooled. The evaporation of a refrigerant, like Freon, is used to provide the cooling. The term Freon is generally used for any of the various nonflammable fluorocarbons that are used as refrigerants and as propellants for aerosols.

Working of Evaporation Cycle in Air Conditioners

The evaporation cycle in an air conditioner works in the following way:

• The compressor compresses the cool Freon gas. This causes the gas to become hot, turning into high-pressure Freon gas. This hot gas runs through a set of coils in order to dissipate its heat. It then condenses into a liquid.
• In the process in which the Freon liquid  runs through an expansion valve, it evaporates to become cold, turning into low-pressure Freon gas.
• This cold gas runs through a set of coils. This process allows the gas to absorb heat and cool down the air inside the building.
• A small amount of lightweight oil is mixed in with the Freon to lubricate the compressor.

Besides cooling, there are other advantages of air conditioners too. Air conditioners can help clean the air in your home as well by removing dust, pollen, mold spores, smoke and other allergens and dirt found in the air by using filters. Most air conditioners also act as dehumidifiers by removing excess water from the air and using it to help cool the unit before disposing it through a hose to the outside. Other units use the condensed moisture to improve their efficiency by routing the cooled water back into the unit to be reused.

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