In 1859, Ferdinand Carré of France devised a slightly more complicated technique. Carré's device, unlike prior vapour-compression machines that used air as a coolant, contained quickly expanding ammonia. Carré's refrigerators were widely employed, and vapour-compression refrigeration became, and continues to be, the most popular cooling technology.

The process of removing heat from an enclosed space or a substance in order to lower its temperature is known as refrigeration. Refrigeration is mostly used to store products at low temperatures in industrialised countries and affluent sections of developing countries, preventing bacteria, yeast, and mould from destroying them.

Many perishable goods can be frozen, allowing them to be kept for months or even years with no nutritional or flavour loss and no change in appearance. In more industrialized countries, air-conditioning, or the use of refrigeration for comfort cooling, has become more common.

Mechanical refrigeration's essential methods were only found in the mid-nineteenth century. William Cullen exhibited the first known artificial refrigeration at the University of Glasgow in 1748. Cullen allowed ethyl ether to boil into a partial vacuum, but he didn't use the outcome for anything. Oliver Evans, an American inventor, designed the first refrigeration machine that used vapour rather than liquid in 1805.

Evans never built his machine, but an American physician named John Gorrie produced one that looked similar in 1844.