Question

The heat pump is also called as the:
(A) Reverse motor
(B) Reverse refrigerator
(C) Reverse oscillator
(D) Reverse engine

Answer 1

Heat pump is an electrical device that is used in the households to keep the rooms warm. The device transfers heat from an external source of energy which is at the higher potential to the heat sink, which is at lower potential. The process moves heat energy in a path that is opposite to the natural tendency of the flow of heat energy.

Complete step by step answer:
A heat pump transfers heat energy from a source having lower heat energy (cooler place) to a heat sink having higher heat energy (warmer place) with the help of external power. Since, by the natural convection of energy flow, energy always flows from a higher potential to a lower potential, but the heat pump does the exact opposite operation with the help of external power.The refrigerators also work on the same principle of extracting heat energy from a source of lower potential and expels it to a reservoir having higher potential with the help of some external power. In this respect, the heat pump is similar to that of a refrigerator, as both of them draws energy from a lower potential and transfers it to a higher potential. Both of them make the process spontaneous with the input of external power.
The difference between them is that the primary purpose of the refrigerator is to cool down the refrigerating chamber while the purpose of the heat pump is to keep the room warm. So, the purpose of a heat pump is precisely opposite to that of the refrigerator and hence termed as ‘reverse refrigerator’. Therefore, the heat pump is also called a reverse refrigerator and option (B) is correct.

Note: There is another stunning similarity between the refrigerator and heat pump. The volume of the chamber into which the heat pump transfers heat to make it warm is small as compared to the surround from which it extracts heat. Similarly, the volume of the chamber from which the refrigerator extracts heat, to make it cold, is smaller as compared to the surroundings where it dumps the heat.