I want to cool down water to near freezing (<40F or <5C). I have an old fridge that I don’t mind ripping apart. I was wondering about the feasibility of getting the cooling unit in the refrigerator to act as a chiller using a pump to circulate the warm water over the cold coils?
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Probably, but what's your use case?– HuesmannCommented May 27, 2023 at 12:12
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1It would be very bulky. The compressor, fan and heat coils are at the bottom and the cooling coils are at the top.– JACKCommented May 27, 2023 at 12:18
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To chill running water, it will probably not work well. Cooling down bottles of water of water and replacing them when you use them will keep the water cool. A fridge would work too slow to cool down running water much. You would need small(~1/8) tubing for the water, so the amount will be limited.– crip659Commented May 27, 2023 at 13:50
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This sort of question could indicate a DIY laser chiller or a CNC liquid cooled router cooler. I've created such a device using an office water cooler. A recirculating system would work as the temperature increase for the device is likely to be small and the limited capacity of such a cooler would not be exceeded if use is intermittent.– fred_dot_uCommented May 27, 2023 at 21:58
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2 Answers
Less likely to break the refrigeration unit if you just drill holes in the door of the fridge (where there won't be coils to puncture) and run a long coil of tubing in the fridge, or have a drum/keg/tank that you feed water into the top of and pull cold water off the bottom of.
Depending on your volume needs, you may well find that the fridge won't keep up, since the typical use-case for a fridge is that it cools a well-insulated space and thus uses a fairly small cooling unit. If your use is sporadic and total volume per sporadic use would be less than a drum/keg/tank you can fit in the fridge body, that should work, as the fridge can cool the new water down gradually when you are not using it. If you're looking for constantly cooling down a stream of water, that stream of water will have to be limited in flow to what the cooling unit can handle.
answered May 27, 2023 at 12:20
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This may enlighten you a bit about the cooling capacity of the average fridge: what-if.xkcd.com/155– EcnerwalCommented May 27, 2023 at 12:30
What you can do would depend on your "MacGyver" skills. The easiest way would be to drill an entry and exit hole in the fridge just big enough to allow a coil of copper or polly pipe inside.
The more coils you can get inside the more cold water you can get. If you rip the fridge appart you will still have to make some type of containment for the coolant coils or that cold will be lost to the air.
A detailed explanation of the purpose of this may get you even more detailed answers.
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If you're gonna reference the man, the myth, the mystery, MacGyver, at least spell it right! ;)– FreeManCommented Jun 26, 2023 at 16:57