As a matter of fact, inside the water cooler is a valve that prevents thewater from the bottle flooding the water cooler. Thewater inside the water cooler is fed into a reservoir, where it is cooled using a refrigerant. The heat in the refrigerant is then expelled from the water cooler.
The Function
The working principle of a cooler, or for that matter, a refrigerator or air-conditioner, is quite simple: introduce the object whose temperature you wish to decrease to an even colder object, so that when the heat from the hot object is transferred to the colder object, the former is rendered cold. Similarly, water is made colder by acquainting it with an even colder fluid. It surrenders its heat to this colder fluid, thus becoming colder itself. Heat is still traveling in the only direction it can, meaning that no fundamental laws of physics are violated.
However, bear in mind that we desire cold water at room temperature or an even lower temperature, which means that this magic liquid must boil — thereby extracting water’s heat — at room temperature. What’s more, it must also freeze at a meager temperature, since it must be refrozen to be reheated. Otherwise, one would be required to refill the machine with more magic fluid each time all of it is heated, thus rendering it unusable for further use.
Moreover,the water is introduced to the cooler by filling a container called the cooler reservoir. The reservoir is effectively a mini-fridge and is therefore often called the bank fridge. The reservoir is surrounded by coils in which the refrigerant flows. The cooler has four major components: the compressor, the condenser, the expansion valve and the evaporator.
Actually, a water cooler doesn’t necessarily employ a separate, dedicated mechanical unit to evaporate the cold refrigerant. The coils that surround the reservoir often form the condenser itself. The “warm” water surrounded by cold coils transfers its heat to them, and what pours out of the faucet is cold and rejuvenating water. The refrigerant in the pipes, now heated, is pumped into the compressor and the cycle repeats.
