Tailored materials for magnetic refrigeration around room temperature

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Room-temperature magnetic refrigeration is about to take over from the conventional compressor-based refrigeration technology. The main disadvantages of the latter are the high capital cost of the com- pressor, its low degree of efficiency, and the use of explosive or ozone depleting gases. The new technology will considerably reduce these drawbacks and thus lead to significant cost and energy savings. Magnetic refrigerators use solid refrigerants and common heat-transfer media (water, water-alcohol solution, air, or helium gas) that do not pose any environmental or other danger. Crucial for the commercial viability of magnetic refrigeration is finding the right working material. Mag- netic refrigerants are to fulfill a number of criteria, like a large magneto-caloric e®ect at operating tem- perature, high thermal and low electrical conductivity, mechanical and chemical stability, low toxicity and materials cost. The proposed project aims at searching for metallic refrigerants that would outperform Gd metal, which has been used in almost all prototype devices produced till now. Thus it may bring about a breakthrough in the practical application (household, automobile, food industry, computers ...) of magnetic refrigeration.