#electrocaloric

Novel ceramic material uses lattice disorder to enhance electrocaloric cooling

Electrocaloric (EC) cooling works by using electricity to generate a cooling effect, which is more efficient, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly compared to traditional vapor-compression-based cooling methods. A research team led by associate Prof. Yin Lihua from Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences developed a new route based on lattice disorder effect to improve the electrocaloric effect in BaTiO3-based systems. Their research is published in Applied Physics Letters. In their new study, Yin and his team focused on improving the EC effect in BaTiO3 (barium titanate), which is commonly used in EC cooling systems. They designed materials with a special kind of disorder in their structure, which helps enhance the cooling effect.

Two groups demonstrate designs for electrocaloric cooling that change temperature under an electric field

Two teams working independently of each other have demonstrated designs for electrocaloric cooling that can change temperatures under an electric field. Both groups used lead scandium tantalate capacitors in their systems, but they differed slightly in how they were used. The first group, with members from PARC in the U.S. and Murata Manufacturing Co., in Japan showed that electrocaloric cooling could be done using only solid materials. The second group, with members from the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology and Murata Manufacturing Co. in Japan used fluids for heat transfer. Both teams have published accounts of their work and findings in the journal Science.

In Hot Pursuit of 21st Century Cooling

Caloric materials could potentially replace conventional cooling systems with planet-friendly technology, but making them cheap and practical is a major challenge.

It’s not exactly a looker, but a five-foot tall, A-shaped engineering rig at the University of Maryland’s College Park campus could potentially evolve into a partial solution for a warming planet. At the heart of this refrigeration prototype is a material that gets cold just by being squeezed and released. It’s one of many so-called caloric materials that could provide for the world’s rapidly expanding cooling needs without exacerbating climate change. These materials cool in response to pressure, electric fields, or magnetic fields. Completely absent from this solid-state cooling concept are the volatile liquid refrigerants that are the lifeblood for just about all current cooling technologies and that are important contributors to global warming.

As the world’s billions of air conditioners, refrigerators, chillers, and dehumidifiers age and become throwaways, their refrigerants mostly leak into the atmosphere, where they trap solar radiation far more powerfully than carbon dioxide. And every day, the increasingly sweaty citizens of the planet install about 260,000 new air-conditioning (AC) units. At that rate, the number of ACs will likely balloon from the current 1.2 billion or so to 4.5 billion by 2050 [1]. The vapor-compression systems inside cooling appliances already consume about 20% of global electricity, the generation of which is a top source of humanity’s carbon dioxide emissions. Without a planet-wide redo of cooling technology, the explosive growth expected in cooling demand and supply is destined to make global warming worse. And that, in turn, will increase demand for more cooling.