“A fridge for the common man that does not require electricity and keeps food fresh too. With this basic parameter in mind Mansukhbhai came up with Mitticool, a fridge made of clay. It works on the principle of evaporation. Water from the upper chambers drips down the side, and gets evaporated taking away heat from the inside , leaving the chambers cool. The top upper chamber is used to store water. A small lid made from clay is provided on top. A small faucet tap is also provided at the front lower end of chamber to tap out the water for drinking use. In the lower chamber, two shelves are provided to store the food material. The first shelf can be used for storing vegetables, fruits etc. and the second shelf can be used for storing milk etc. Cool and affordable, this clay refrigerator is a very good option to keep food, vegetables and even milk naturally fresh for days.
Silent Feature:
• Better preserves the original taste of fruits and vegetables.
• Very good alternative for the rural people who may not afford the conventional refrigerator due to high initial cost and its maintenance cost.
• It does not require any maintenance”
Update: Here’s a simple do-it-yourself evaporative refrig made with porous unglazed terracotta bricks. Image from Survival Scoop.com. This is something anyone can afford and make themselves. The text is labeled from left to right: Cavity filled with wet sand; Double brick wall; Trays of food; Raised water tank; Drip hose. Run the perforated drip hose around the top of the wall so water can gradually trickle down and moisten the entire wall. You could build these any size you want all the way up to a cool pantry.
This is a very clever design, and I can see where it could have it’s applications. One has to wonder what the costs including export would be.
I didn’t check the cost. Sometimes companies don’t publish the cost and it takes a long time to find out how much it is. I’m still waiting to find out the cost of the biogas plant. This is baffling to me. They sent me an automated thank you email. They could have just as easily attached a PDF price list.
I went to the Mitticool website and sure enough they don’t list the price. You have to email them for a quote. http://www.mitticool.com/
I did manage to find this video that says they cost about 2,500 – 3,500 rupees. This means it’s less than $60 according to this four year old video. It may be $100 now. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqasYTFSfd0
This probably works like a pot-in-pot or zeer evaporative cooling refrig. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pot-in-pot_refrigerator
Most evaporative refrigs are just a pot inside a pot. Some are more elaborate like these:
http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Hyderabad/prices-of-earthen-pots-head-skywards/article4534586.ece
http://www.survivalscoop.com/cool-storage/