It's not the burning of propane. That's just a heat source.

Ammonia is the key to refrigeration. It has an interesting property in that when it evaporates, it sucks in a LOT of heat. The Dometic fridges can use AC, DC or propane to produce heat sufficient to cause the ammonia to evaporate in a portion of cooling system. When it evaporates, it sucks in even more heat from the surrounding area (by that time inside the fridge box). At a certain point it condenses, and returns back to the place where the heating element is again.

On Aug 27, 2012, at 7:35 PM, Jeff Palmer wrote:

> So can someone explain to this Arts student how burning propane results in cool?
>
> Jeff
> (not intending to insult fellow Arts students!)
>
> On 2012-08-26, at 4:46 PM, David Beierl wrote:
>
>> At 10:30 AM 8/26/2012, Rocket J Squirrel wrote:
>>> That refrigerator uses 900 btu/hr on maximum setting, it says. A 16.4 oz
>>> bottle of propane provides 10,000 btu so the unit would drain a bottle
>>> in 11 hours. That's not so good.
>>
>> On maximum setting it's a deep freeze.  Lehman's claim .7 lb/day
>> typical consumption.
>>
>> Yrs,
>> d
>>