There are two main types of refrigeration: vapor-compressor and thermoelectric. Vapor-compressor refrigeration is the most common and consists of a compressor and a circulating fluid while the thermoelectric system is composed of two semiconductors and a fan, a process known as the Peltier effect. But what is it and are there advantages of a thermoelectric wine fridge versus a traditional wine bottle cooler?
While students of physics are introduced to Jean Charles Athanase Peltier as a physicist, he was actually a 30 year old Frenchman who retired from his clock making business and began curiously investigating electricity. He joined a copper wire to a bismuth wire and then connected a battery to each end. [It is very possible that he just happened to have those two pieces of wire on hand and gave little thought that they were different metals.] When the electricity flowed he discovered that one side of the joint between the copper and bismuth wires was hot, while the other side was cold. He had inadvertently discovered the thermoelectric heat pump. The Peltier Effect, as this discovery is known, shows that electricity can cause a heat differential at the junction of two different metals joined together. While this technology can actually be used as a temperature controller to either heat or cool, in practice the main application is to cool – as in a

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About the Author:
I am Paulsimmions read mathematics at Stanford and remained there for his MS. From 1998-1999 on researched in Evolution and in Animal Behavior in Camrbidge, UK. I was was then a professor in the departments of Anthropology and Biology, New Jersy College, USA. Now teaches at the department of Zoology. Carried out research in several areas of evolutionary biology, particularly in sexual selection and the comparative method.

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