Thirty years of near room temperature magnetic cooling: Where we are today and future prospects

Abstract

SurveyTechnology History a b s t r a c tThe seminal study by Brown in 1976 showed that it was possible to use the magnetocaloric effect to produce a substantial cooling effect near room temperature. About 15 years later Green et al. built a device which actually cooled a load other than the magnetocaloric material itself and the heat exchange fluid. The major breakthrough, however, occurred in 1997 when the Ames Laboratory/Astronautics proof-of-principle refrigerator showed that magnetic refrigeration was competitive with conventional gas compression cooling.Since then, over 25 magnetic cooling units have been built and tested throughout the world. The current status of near room temperature magnetic cooling is reviewed, including a discussion of the major problems facing commercialization and potential solutions thereof. The future outlook for this revolutionary technology is discussed.

Mössbauer study of the magnetocaloric compound AlFe2 B 2

“…The pseudo-Voigt profile function was used to describe the profile function and the background was described by linear interpolation between chosen points. In the refinement the following 16 parameters were varied: zero point, background, scale factor, peak shape, half width parameters (3), unit cell parameters (3), atom occupancies (3), isotropic temperature parameter and atomic coordinates (2). To precisely determine the unit cell parameters refinements were performed in the software UnitCell [14].…”

“…Cooling devices utilising the GMCE are to become 20-30% more energy efficient than conventional vapour compression systems [2] and could thus contribute to the development of a sustainable global energy economy. The materials showing the highest GMCE contain rare earth elements, which are high in cost and have a negative impact on the environment during mining.…”

Suppression of magnetostructural transition on GdSiGe thin film after thermal cyclings

“…In this framework, magnetic refrigeration systems emerge as the most prominent candidates, since they are more efficient and are not considered harmful to the environment [2][3][4] . The magnetic refrigeration at room temperature is based on the magnetocaloric effect (MCE), which occurs in magnetic materials that exhibit a large magnetization change under the application of a magnetic field.…”

Magnetic Properties and Magnetocaloric Effect in Layered NdMn1.9V0.1Si2

“…Never the less it is noted that the MCE values of -∆S M ~ 21.4 J kg -1 K -1 for NdMn 1.9 V 0.1 Si 2 at 0-5 T applied field is higher than with MCE values for other materials with small hysteresis that exhibit transitions in the temperature region below 100 K. These materials include: TbCoC 2 [14] (-∆S M =15 J kg -1 K -1 at 28K), GdCoAl [15](-∆S M =10.4 J kg -1 K -1 at 100K) and TbCoAl [15] (-∆S M =10.5 J kg -1 K -1 at 70K), all of which -in common with NdMn 1.9 V 0.1 Si 2 -importantly very small field hysteresis losses. The magnetic entropy change, -∆S M (T,B) has also been derived from heat calorimetric measurements of the field dependence of the heat capacity using the expression [2,16,17]:…”

“…The study of the magnetocaloric effect (MCE) has become an interesting area of research in the field of magnetic materials, with increasing prospects as the basis of magnetic cooling to replace conventional refrigeration [1][2][3][4]. Magnetic materials with large MCE have been extensively studied experimentally and theoretically; the first order magnetic phase transition is accompanied by large thermal and field hysteresis in the temperature and magnetic field dependent magnetization.…”