Barocaloric materials for zero-carbon heat pumps

供暖和制冷对我们的生活是必不可少的。我们的家庭和车辆的舒适度依赖于它们，而企业需要为生产场所和工业过程供暖和制冷。总的来说，空间和过程加热和冷却是英国能源消耗的最大贡献，也是温室气体排放的最大来源。加热主要通过燃烧天然气提供，而冷却主要通过压缩挥发性氟化气体提供。然而，这些传统技术既不高效，也不环保。高压效应是在压力变化时发生在机械响应固体中的可逆热变化。这些效应类似于目前的热泵所利用的由压力引起的气体热变化，但它们有望提高能源效率，并消除对有害温室气体的需求。我们的目标是开发一种基于新型高压混合复合材料的节能高压热泵，这种复合材料结合了有机高压材料的最佳性能，即极大的压力驱动的热变化，以及无机高压材料的最佳性能，即高导热性和低滞后。如此大规模的技术变革将需要为其成功部署制定定制的经济和政策战略。因此，我们的目标是制定一个完全集成的定制经济和政策战略，以支持BC热泵的创新到商业化。使用高压材料而不是气体运行的热泵的成就将允许脱碳加热和冷却，提供能源独立性，并使英国成为这一新兴技术的世界领导者。

Heating and cooling are essential to our lives. We rely on them for comfort in our homes and vehicles, and businesses need heating and cooling for productive workplaces and industrial processes. Taken together, space and process heating and cooling represent the biggest contribution to the UK's energy consumption, and the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions.Heating is primarily provided from burning natural gas, whereas cooling is primarily provided from compressing volatile fluorinated gases. However, these conventional technologies are neither efficient, not friendly to the environment.Barocaloric effects are reversible thermal changes that occur in mechanically responsive solids when subjected to changes in pressure. These effects are analogous to the pressure-induced thermal changes in gases that are exploited in current heat pumps, but they promise higher energy efficiencies and obviate the need for harmful greenhouse gases.We aim at developing an energy-efficient barocaloric heat pump based on novel barocaloric hybrid composite materials that combine the best properties of organic barocaloric materials, namely extremely large pressure-driven thermal changes, and the best of inorganic barocaloric materials, namely high thermal conductivity and low hysteresis.A technological transformation of this magnitude will require the development of bespoke economic and policy strategies for its successful deployment. Therefore, we aim at developing a fully integrated bespoke economic and policy strategy that will support the innovation of BC heat pumps through to commercialisation.The achievement of heat pumps that operate using barocaloric materials instead of gases will permit decarbonising heating and cooling, provide energy independence, and enable the UK to become the world leader on this emerging technology.