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- An air conditioner is a device that transfers heat from a room to the outside in order to chill the room down.
- Through ventilation, the cold air can then be distributed throughout a building.
- Because the Second Law of Thermodynamics forbids entropy from naturally decreasing, it takes work to operate an air conditioner.
- Similar to a heat pump, air conditioners operate on a cooling cycle.
- In the evaporator, a cold liquid refrigerant absorbs heat from the hotter area, cooling the space.
- The refrigerant is then compressed to raise its temperature as it transitions from liquid to gas.
- The heat from the refrigerant is subsequently transferred to the outside air as it passes through the condenser coils.
- In order to lower its pressure and drop down to below the room’s temperature and start the cycle all over again, refrigerant expands.
- Due to the presence of both an inside unit and an exterior unit (the condenser), air conditioners are referred to as “split systems” (the evaporator).
- Both cooling and dehumidifying an interior space are tasks that these two technologies together complete.
