Magnetocaloric effect: From materials research to refrigeration devices

Magnetocaloric materials with a Curie temperature near room temperature have attracted significant interest for some time due to their possible application for high-efficiency refrigeration devices. This review focuses on a number of key issues of relevance for the characterization, performance and implementation of such materials in actual devices. The phenomenology and fundamental thermodynamics of magnetocaloric materials is discussed, as well as the hysteresis behavior often found in first-order materials. A number of theoretical and experimental approaches and their implications are reviewed. The question of how to evaluate the suitability of a given material for use in a magnetocaloric device is covered in some detail, including a critical assessment of a number of common performance metrics. Of particular interest is which non-magnetocaloric properties need to be considered in this connection. An overview of several important materials classes is given before considering the performance of materials in actual devices. Finally, an outlook on further developments is presented.

Materials Challenges for High Performance Magnetocaloric Refrigeration Devices

Magnetic refrigeration, heating and power conversion technologies are interesting alternatives to the conventional refrigeration, heat pumping and different conventional energy conversion technologies. At present they all show a realistic potential to enter conventional markets, respectively to be applied in a few years. In this review paper, mainly magnetic refrigeration and magnetic heating are addressed and from these two technologies the main part is dedicated to magnetic refrigeration at room temperature. This article covers the demand of giving a complete list and description of existing magnetic heating and cooling prototypes up to the year 2010. Forty-one machines, their components and operation principles are presented in detail.

A review of magnetic refrigerator and heat pump prototypes built before the year 2010

Solid-state refrigeration offers potential advantages over traditional cooling systems, but few devices offer high specific cooling power with a high coefficient of performance (COP) and the ability to be applied directly to surfaces. We developed a cooling device with a high intrinsic thermodynamic efficiency using a flexible electrocaloric (EC) polymer film and an electrostatic actuation mechanism. Reversible electrostatic forces reduce parasitic power consumption and allow efficient heat transfer through good thermal contacts with the heat source or heat sink. The EC device produced a specific cooling power of 2.8 watts per gram and a COP of 13. The new cooling device is more efficient and compact than existing surface-conformable solid-state cooling technologies, opening a path to using the technology for a variety of practical applications.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/357/6356/1130.full.pdf

Highly efficient electrocaloric cooling with electrostatic actuation

The need for energy-efficient and environmentally friendly refrigeration, heat pumping, air conditioning, and thermal energy harvesting systems is currently more urgent than ever. Magnetocaloric energy conversion is among the best available alternatives for achieving these technological goals and has been the subject of substantial basic and applied research over the last two decades. The subject is strongly interdisciplinary, requiring proper understanding and efficient integration of knowledge in different specialized fields. This review article presents a historical and up-to-date account of the energy-related applications of magnetocaloric materials and information about their processing and magnetic fields, thermodynamics, heat transfer, and other relevant characteristics. The article also discusses the conceptual design of magnetocaloric refrigeration and power generation systems and some guidelines for future research in the field.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/aenm.201903741

Energy Applications of Magnetocaloric Materials

Room temperature magnetic refrigeration has been proved to be a feasible refrigerating technology and has a prosperous application potential. In this research, magnetocaloric effect (MCE) of metal gadolinium is measured and the metal is prepared from ingot to granular state by method of hydriding–ball milling–dehydriding. The other compound, Gd 5 Si 2 Ge 2 alloy, is also prepared into grains by mechanical comminuting and its magnetocaloric property is obtained. An experimental system of room temperature magnetic refrigeration is established, and three kinds of magnetic refrigerant (MR I: 0.3 mm mean diameter gadolinium particle, MR II: 0.55 mm mean diameter gadolinium particle and MR III: 0.3–0.75 mm Gd 5 Si 2 Ge 2 alloy particle) are employed in AMR. Performance experiments of AMR system under various temperature range, temperature span, flow rate, and flow period conditions are investigated. The results indicate that AMR adopting MR I, II, III can generate a maximum refrigerating capacity of 18.7 W, 17.8 W, and 10.3 W, respectively, under a 3 K temperature span. With the increasing temperature span, the capacity decreases. MR I and MR II have an equivalent refrigerating ability higher than MR III.

Experimental investigation on refrigeration performance of a reciprocating active magnetic regenerator of room temperature magnetic refrigeration

Due to the reason of water injection, twin screw water vapor compressor can realize higher pressure ratio and saturated temperature lift of compressed vapor. Its application in mechanical vapor compression (MVC) heat pump systems has drawn much attention recently because of the great energy-saving potential and reliability. In this paper, a thermodynamic model of the working process in water injected twin screw water vapor compressor is established, in which heat and mass transfer between water liquid and vapor are considered. Its accuracy is validated by the experimental recorded p–V indicator diagrams. With the proposed model, the compressor performance is simulated and studied. According to the simulation results, water injection can increase the volumetric efficiency 5% and adiabatic indication efficiency 6%. Once the discharged vapor has been cooled to saturation, the shaft power of the compressor will increase while the adiabatic indication efficiency and the volume flow rate together with the volumetric efficiency change little with the continuous increase of injected water. Since the sensible heat of water is much smaller than latent heat, the temperature of injected water has little effect on the performance. Both the volume flow rate and shaft power increase linearly with the rotor speed. In addition, the volume flow rate of injected water should be adjusted with the regulation of rotor speed to guarantee a saturate discharge temperature. The volumetric efficiency will increase and the adiabatic indication efficiency will decrease slowly with the rise of rotor speed. Due to the cooling and evaporation effects of liquid water at the discharge chamber, the adiabatic indication efficiency does not decline when it operates at under compression condition. Water injection can greatly improve the compressor performance when the compressor operates at under compression or over compression condition, especially where a high saturated temperature lift of compressed vapor is in demand.

Chuang Wang

Papers

Experimental investigation on refrigeration performance of a reciprocating active magnetic regenerator of room temperature magnetic refrigeration

Modeling and performance study of a water-injected twin-screw water vapor compressor

Numerical analysis of double-inlet pulse tube refrigerator

Modified orifice pulse tube refrigerator without a reservoir

Numerical investigation on mass and heat transfer in an ammonia oil-free twin-screw compressor with liquid injection