Heat removal question, refrigerator.

[scar123]

Heat does not naturally flow from a cool body to a hot body. A
refrigerator, however, does remove heat from the icebox and expels it as
warm air to the outside world. In terms of enery, what is required to make this process
function?

 

[lavalamp]

Cooling systems typically make use of a phase change of a fluid. I would go into more detail, but wikipedia can take it from here.

 

[Andrew Mason]

Heat does not naturally flow from a cool body to a hot body. A
refrigerator, however, does remove heat from the icebox and expels it as
warm air to the outside world. In terms of enery, what is required to make this process
function?

The second law of thermodynamics requires that for heat to flow from a cooler to a hotter reservoir, work must be done on the system. The actual mechanism of by which this is done may vary between devices (e.g. Joule Thompson effect, evaporation, solid state diodes) but the second law is always be obeyed.

AM