Introduction

In second law of thermodynamic its states that:

Heat usually is transferred from high temperature to lower temperature

No heat engine can convert heat into work with 100% efficiency
No refrigerator can move heat from higher temperature without work input
For an isolated system, the entropy will always tend to increase

Based on Kelvin-Planck statement of the second law of thermodynamic, which is expressed as follows:
It is impossible for any device that operates on a cycle to receive heat from a single reservoir
and produce a nets amount of work.
In other words, a heat engine must exchange heat with a low-temperature sink as well as hightemperature source to keep operating. Refrigeration cycle is a sequence of thermodynamic processes whereby
heat is withdrawn from a cold body and expelled to a hot body. Theoretical thermodynamic cycle consists of
nondissipative and frictionless processes. For this reason, a thermodynamic cycle can be operated in the forward
direction to produce mechanical power from heat energy or it can be operated in the reverse direction to produce
heat energy from mechanical power. The reversed cycle is primarily for the cooling effect that it produces
during a portion of the cycle and it called refrigeration cycle.
The purpose of a refrigerator is to extract as much heat from the cold body as possible with the
expenditure of as little work as possible. The efficiency of the performance of a refrigerator is refrigeration cycle
is the coefficient of performance (COP), which defined as the ratio of the heat remove to the work expended.
The coefficient of performance of the reverse Carnot cycle is the maximum obtainable for stated temperature of
source and sink.

Diagram:

Figure 1.0: The cycle of refrigerator process

Theory:
Refrigerators and the First Law

Figure 2
Any refrigerator takes in energy from the region to be cooled (or kept cold) and deposits heat energy
into some region outside of the refrigerator, such as your kitchen (see figure 2.) In order to work there has to be
some work done by the compressor and its electric motor. Using the First Law of Thermodnamics we can write

QC Q H =W

(Note: since work in done one the refrigerator by another device, the compressor, rather than by the refrigerator
itself, according to the sign convention which is part of the first law, the work done is negative.)
Suppose that 2.4 MJ of work is used to remove 5.2 MJ of heat from the inside of the refirgerator, then an amount
of heat QH = QC + W = 5.2 MJ + 2.4 MJ = 7.6 MJ must be added to the kitchen.

Efficiency of a refrigerator
The efficiency of a refrigerator (known as the coefficient of performance, COP) is defined as

Amount of heat remove

Work done
Qc
COP=inside of therefrigerator operate therefrigerator =

W
For example, if 20 MJ are removed from the inside of the refrigerator by doing 7.5 MJ of work, then
the coefficient of performance is equal to 20/7.5 = 2.67.
Second Law of Thermodynamic

Figure 1
The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that heat will spontaneously always flow from a hot region
to a cold region. By itself it never flows the other way, but can be made to do so under the influence of an
external agency. The Second Law of Thermodynamics also states that this outside influence must do some work.
In a kitchen refrigerator the inside of a closed box is to be kept cool by removing heat from the inside
and depositing it on the outside. Because the heat will not move freely from the cold inside to the hot outside it
must be made to do so using an intermediate fluid which absorbs heat on the inside, then carries outside of the
box and releases the heat to the air (see figure 1.)
This fluid circulates in a pipe which passes in and out of the back of the refrigerator, kept moving by a
compressor driven by an electric motor. It is the work done by this compressor (using electrical energy from the
household electricity supply) that makes the refrigerator work without violating the Second Law of
Thermodynamics.

The Carnot refrigerator:

In this cycle, liquid enters the refrigerator in a region of low pressure, where it evaporates to become a
gas, absorbing heat in the process. This gas then passes through a pump into a region of high pressure, where it
condenses to become a liquid, thereby releasing heat. This cycle thus requires a special liquid which evaporates
and condenses within the given operating pressure and temperature regions; these liquids, such as Freon, usually
require special care in their handling and disposal.
A refrigerator that operates on the reversed Carnot cycle is called a Carnot refrigerator. The coefficient
of performance of reversible or irreversible refrigerator is given by

COP R=
[

QH
1]
QL

( )

Where
QH=the amount of heat rejected to the high-temperature reservoir
QL=the amount of heat receive from the low-temperature reservoir
For reversible refrigerator such as Carnot refrigerators, the COPs can be determined by replacing the heat
transfer ratios in the above equation by the absolute temperature ratios. These are

COP R ,rev =
[

TH
1]
TL

( )

Where
TH= the absolute temperature of the high-temperature reservoir
TL= the absolute temperature of the low-temperature reservoir
COPR, rev is the highest COP a refrigerator which operates between a high-temperature reservoir at temperature
TH and a low-temperature reservoir at temperature L can reach. All irreversible refrigerator working between the
same two reservoirs have lower COPs.

Just as the Carnot engine is the mathematical limit to the maximum possible efficiency of a heat engine, the
Carnot refrigerator is the mathematical limit to the COP (efficiency) of a refrigerator. Although it cannot be
built, it does tell us the best performance that we can hope for from a real refrigerator. As with the Carnot
engine, the COPc of a Carnot refrigerator depends on only two numbers, the temperature of the region to be kept
cold (TC) and the temperature of the region where the heat is transfered (TH). It is equal to

COPc =

Tc
T H T C

Suppose we have a Carnot refrigerator used to keep food cold (TC = 3 oC = 276 K) in a kitchn whose
temperature is TC = 22 oC = 295 K.

Its COPc would be 276/(295-276) = 276/19 = 14.5

If a real refrigerator is only 35 % as good as the Carnot refrigerator, then the real refrigerator would
have a coefficient of performance equal to 35 % * 14.5 = 5.08

If we need to remove 300 kJ of heat (QC) from the refrigerator, then using the definition of the
coefficient of performance the amount of work that we need is W = QC / COP = 300 kJ / 5.08 = 59 kJ

The total heat energy (QH) deposited in the kitchen is equal to QH = QC + W = 300 kJ + 59 kJ = 359 kJ.

Heat flows from hot to cold

An explanation for this form of the 2nd law can be obtained from Newton's laws and our microscopic
description of the nature of temperature. We have already seen that the flow of heat through conduction occurs
when fast (hot) atoms collide with slow (cool) atoms, transferring some of their kinetic energy in the process.
One might wonder why the fast atoms don't collide with the cool ones and subsequently speed up, thereby
gaining kinetic energy as the cool ones lose kinetic energy - this would involve the spontaneous transfer of heat
from a cool object to a hot one, in violation of the 2nd law. The answer lies in energy and momentum
conservation in a collision - one can show, using these two principles, that in a collision between two objects
which conserves energy (called an elastic collision the faster object slows down and the slower object speeds
up.)
It is important to emphasize that this statement of the 2nd law applies to the spontaneous flow of
heat from hot to cold. It is possible, of course, to make a cool object in a warm place cooler - this is what a
refrigerator does - but this involves the input of some external energy. As such, the flow of heat is not
spontaneous in this case. The generic way that this works is pictured below.
A useful analogy in this regard is to think of heat flowing from hot to cold objects as running ``down
hill'', which is what objects naturally do in Newtonian mechanics. It is possible to make objects go up hill, but
only by doing external work on them. This movement of heat from a cool to a warm reservoir through some
external work is the basis of the following three devices.

In a refrigerator, the cool reservoir is the inside of the refrigerator, and the warm reservoir is the room
itself. From this, one can see that leaving a refrigerator door open will not cool off the room that it is in.

Figure 3: A refrigerator cycle

The Reversed Carnot Cycle

Reversing the Carnot cycle does reverse the directions of heat and work interactions. A refrigerator or
heat pump that operates on the reversed Carnot cycle is called a Carnot refrigerator or a Carnot heat pump.

Figure 4: T-s diagram and major components for Carnot refrigerator.

Discussion

References:

Yunus A. engel , Michael A. Holes (2011). Thermodynamic, An Engineering Approach (7th ed) New
York :McGraw-Hill
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E Refrigeration Cycle , Retrieved May 9
2015, http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Refrigeration+Cycle
McGraw-Hill Concise Encyclopaedia of Engineering S.v Refrigeration Cycle , Retrieved May 9
2015, http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Refrigeration+Cycle
Haresh Khemani edited by: Lamar Stonecypher updated ( 8/13/2008). Applications of Second Law
of Thermodynamics: Part-2: Refrigerators.
http://www.brighthubengineering.com/thermodynamics/4352-applications-of-second-law-ofthermodynamics-with-refrigerators/
California State University, Stanislaus (2014) Refrigerators and the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
http://physics.csustan.edu/Ian/HowThingsWork/Topics/Temperature/ThermoLaws/Refrigerators.htm