Generally, a refrigerator is a home appliance for storing foods in the inside of the refrigerator shielded by a handle thereof at a low temperature, and can store the stored foods in an optimal state by cooling the inside of the storage space using cold air generated by the heat exchange with refrigerant that circulates a freezing cycle.
The demand for large and multi-functional refrigerators according to the change and improvement in dietary life has been grown. Taking users' convenience into consideration, products having diverse forms and convenient devices have thereby been released.
The inside of the refrigerator may be partitioned by shelves, drawers, baskets, or the like, and the foods may be received in each storage space partitioned thereby. In particular, in the space receiving foods in an airtight state or a state equivalent thereto such as drawers, foods, which are separated and received from other foods, may be stored. Also, foods, which are sensitive to temperature and moisture such as vegetables, are generally stored.
In order to store the foods such as vegetables in the storage space such as drawers for a long time, the inside of the storage space may be filled with as little air as possible. To this end, there is provided a configuration to degass air inside the storage space.
Korean Patent Registration Nos. 0547426 and 0606728 disclose a refrigerator to degass air inside a storage space, wherein a portion of air inside the storage space is thereby exhausted to the outside to reduce the amount of air inside the storage space, so the storage performance of foods can be improved.
However, in Korean Patent Registration No. 0547426, the airtight between a tray and a cover is hardly guaranteed, and the cover must be able to move up and down so as to operate the airtight of the storage space, so an upper portion of the cover must have a space for the operation, thereby causing a problem that the receiving space is lost. Furthermore, efficient close-adhering and degassing can be performed only when the entirety of the cover moves simultaneously, thereby causing a problem that the operation therefor is not easy.
In Korean Patent Registration No. 0606728, air is exhausted backward, that is, in a direction that a storage container is drawn in, to have a difficulty in exhausting air smoothly, and the storage container must be compulsorily opened in order that external air enters the inside of the storage container for opening the storage container, thereby causing a problem that use convenience is not good.