US 6,981,336 B2
Washing/drying machine
Etsushi Nagae, Gunma (Japan); Hiroshi Mukaiyama, Gunma (Japan); Koji Ono, Gunma (Japan); Masaya Tadano, Gunma (Japan); Tetsuya Masuda, Gunma (Japan); Kazuyoshi Tomochika, Gunma (Japan); Takahiro Nakamura, Gunma (Japan); Masakatsu Morishige, Shiga (Japan); Harumi Takeuchi, Shiga (Japan); Kiyokazu Fujikawa, Shiga (Japan); Tamotsu Kawamura, Shiga (Japan); Motohiko Kosano, Gunma (Japan); Shinichi Akiyama, Shiga (Japan); and Nobuo Koumoto, Shiga (Japan)
Assigned to Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd., Osaka (Japan)
Filed on Sep. 24, 2004, as Appl. No. 10/948,797.
Claims priority of application No. 2003-331348 (JP), filed on Sep. 24, 2003.
Prior Publication US 2005/0072022 A1, Apr. 07, 2005
Int. Cl. F26B 21/06 (2006.01); F26B 11/02 (2006.01)
U.S. Cl. 34—77 4 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A washing/drying machine comprising:
an accommodating chamber in which things to be washed are accommodated and in which a washing operation of the things to be washed and a drying operation after end of the washing operation are performed;
water supply means for supplying water into the accommodating chamber and draining means for discharging the water from the accommodating chamber in the washing operation;
a refrigerant circuit in which a compressor, a gas cooler, a decompression device, an evaporator are successively connected to one another in an annular form via a piping and in which carbon dioxide is used as a refrigerant; and
blower means for blowing air which has exchanged heat with the gas cooler into the accommodating chamber to allow the air passed through the accommodating chamber to exchange the heat with the evaporator in the drying operation,
wherein the water supplied into the accommodating chamber by the water supply means in the washing operation is heated by the refrigerant on a high pressure side of the refrigerant circuit.