Coolar

The Coolar system uses warm water through solar energy. The system does not require batteries or electronic components, nor rotating parts. It does not use any hazardous refrigerants or lubricants.  Coolar is designed to be economical, durable, and a sustainable solution for vaccines, medicine, and food storage in regions with unreliable or expensive electricity. It also produces 10x low carbon emissions

How it works

The absorption cooling cycle

Evaporation

Part of the water evaporates in the evaporator due to low pressure in the system. The resulting evaporation cooling effect cools the storage compartment.

Absorption

The absorbent attracts vapour, binds it on its surface and frees up space in the evaporator. In that space more water evaporates, so multiplying the cooling effect.

Drying

Once the absorbent’s surface is filled with vapour, the cooling is paused temporarily. In order for the process to be repeated the absorbent must be dried.

Condensation

By heating, the absorbent is then dried and all of the vapour is released from its surface. The vapour then condenses and flows back into the evaporators. This completes the cycle.

Provided by the manufacturer

Unknown

In the spring of 2019, The company successfully installed and operated its Coolar refrigerator prototype on the island Tenerife. During the field test, the refrigerator operated completely independent from the electricity grid and managed to reliably cool the storage compartment inside the refrigerator cabinet to below 8°C, even as outside temperatures reached up to 36°C.

This is the first successful field test of a refrigerator operating with a solar heat-powered continuous adsorption cooling system that only uses water as the refrigerant.

In developing nations, up to 75% of vaccines are damaged due to storage at too high or too low a temperature. Delivering damaged vaccines does not effectively influence disease control according to Coolar website