A combined sol–gel and spark plasma sintering route to produce highly dense and fine-grained La0.65Ca0.20Na0.15MnO3 ceramics for magnetocaloric applications

Abstract

Sol–gel chemistry and spark plasma sintering were coupled to produce fine-grained and dense La0.65Ca0.20Na0.15MnO3 ceramics and their magnetic properties were explored in order to evaluate their efficiency for domestic magnetocaloric applications. The obtained manganites crystallize in the rhombohedral symmetry (R-3c). They present grain size in the sub-micrometer range. Their density and their average grain size increase when the sintering temperature increases from 600 to 800 °C. This entails an increase of the Curie temperature (TC) and of the maximum of the magnetic entropy change, even if these values remain smaller than those measured on their bulk counterparts prepared by a conventional solid state route. However, the magnetic transition occurs on a broad temperature range, resulting in a relative cooling power reaching about 265 J Kg−1 for an applied magnetic field of 5 T. This value is very close to that previously measured on bulk La0.65Ca0.20Na0.15MnO3 ceramics and represents about 64% of that measured on the standard Gd. The ceramics produced here by a low-energy and time-consuming method can thus be considered as technically and economically valuable for the desired applications.