A cool story
Have you ever wondered where refrigerated transport began? With the maxwell+spark lithium-ion powered refrigeration system, cooling has come a long, long way, but how did it all start??
It all began thanks to the work of Frederick McKinley Jones, an engineer born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1893, who invented the first portable air-cooling unit in 1935. He went on to form the US Thermo Controls Company.
Originally trained as a mechanic, Jones was awarded 61 patents in refrigeration equipment as well as in a variety of other fields, like X-ray machines, sound equipment and gasoline engines, a real Da Vinci type of guy.?
His mechanical refrigeration units were placed on the outside of trucks that carried perishable foods and this innovation greatly improved their long-haul overland transportation. This system ended the reliance on ice which would inevitably melt. However, sometimes things did still go wrong (visibly during a famous scene in the James Dean movie ‘East of Eden’).?
Jones’s innovative refrigeration units were used by the US Army in World War II and variations of the Thermo-King units, as they were called, were used in Europe, Africa and the South Pacific, cooling everything from drinking water to blood plasma, military personnel in field hospitals, repair shops, and transport trucks were made more comfortable and plane cockpits were also cooled by Thermo’s control systems. This opened the door to modern refrigeration.
The ability to keep food fresh or frozen during transport also helped the growth of the frozen food and supermarket industries in the early 50’s. Today refrigeration is everywhere and our supply systems wouldn’t work without it.?
Despite the humble beginnings, transport refrigeration continues to evolve and the next wave of innovation is focused on sustainable refrigeration.?
Maxwell+spark is part of that wave and has developed proven solutions for sustainable transport refrigeration,, saving CO2 emission and improving the carbon footprint we leave behind.??
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