How does an air conditioner cool down a room?
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When matter changes state, it has to give up or take in a certain amount of energy. Ie when water freezes, it needs to give up a certain amount of energy called the latent heat of fusion, and when it melts, it needs to absorb that same amount of energy back in. The same thing happens between liquid and gas, but it’s called the latent heat of vaporization.
An air conditioner (or refrigerator/freezer) has a fluid inside of it called a refrigerant, and that is what will be changing phase to take energy (heat) from the room. There’s a compressor, which is basically a pump. It pumps the refrigerant into the condenser (the hot side of the air conditioner, ie outside) and that increased pressure causes the refrigerant to condense and give up the latent heat of vaporization. This release of energy makes the refrigerant hot, so a fan blows on the pipes holding it and we just try and cool it down to the same temperature as outside.
The now liquid refrigerant is then pumped inside to the evaporator (the cold side), where it can evaporate due to lower pressure and suck up the latent heat of vaporization. This makes it very 6 we blow a fan over the pipes to make it the same temperature as the inside. It then goes back to the condenser and sheds that extra energy and just goes around in a loop.
Basically, it uses the refrigerant as a way to carry the energy (heat) from inside to the outside.
A heat pump is the same thing, but in reverse. It takes the heat from outside and brings it in, which allows it to create more heat in a building for less energy than it consumes by stealing energy from outside.
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