Combining magnetocaloric and elastocaloric effects to achieve a broad refrigeration temperature region in Ni43Mn41Co5Sn11 alloy

Abstract

Solid state refrigeration is promising to replace the traditional vapor compression refrigeration technology because of the environment friendliness and energy saving. The application of solid state refrigeration requires the refrigerants possess not only favorable caloric effects but also wide refrigeration temperature region. However, the narrow working temperature region is a bottleneck problem for this technology. In this paper, we propose a method by combining the magnetocaloric and elastocaloric effects in one refrigerant to solve this problem. The ferromagnetic shape memory Ni43Mn41Co5Sn11 alloy exhibits large magnetocaloric effect across martensitic transformation and elastocaloric effect above martensitic transformation temperature simultaneously. By combining the successive caloric effects at adjacent temperature region, a broad refrigeration temperature region from 250 to 355 K can be achieved. This work indicates the combination of different caloric effects would be an effective way to widen refrigeration temperature region.