Thermoacoustic Heat Engine                                      Normal Refrigerator Compressor
           

            Thermoacoustic refrigeration has several advantages over the conventional vapor compression system used in most commercial refrigerators. First of all the lack of complicated moving parts in this system mean that the possibility of failure is extremely small which results in virtually no maintenance and an almost infinite lifetime. Some may say that this is not that important seeing as how home refrigerators have a life expectancy of ten to fifteen years with very low maintenance already but this is due to the fact that most refrigerators use chlorofluorocarbon gases or CFCs. CFCs are very compatible with oil based lubricants meaning that it is very rare that a compressor will ever need to be re-lubricated. In 2015 these gases will have a production ban on them because of how harmful they are to the ozone. Thermoacoustic refrigerators on the other hand use only inert, harmless gases that will never have any type of regulation imposed on them. Also thermoacoustic refrigeration has the capability of proportion control. This means that the cooling capacity of the device can be controlled gradually depending on the load whereas a vapor compression system only has two states, on and off. By controlling the frequency of the resonator the amount of cooling can be varied when needed as opposed to the compressor which turns on and off more or less frequently depending on the load. This capability will also have a large effect of the efficiency of the device. When producing maximum output, a vapor compression refrigerator is more efficient than a thermoacoustic fridge, but when less output is needed (which is most of the time, unless you leave the door open), the thermoacoustic device increases in efficiency, but the vapor compression fridge does not.