Abstract
This review of the current state of magnetocalorics is focused on materials exhibiting a giant magnetocaloric response near room temperature. To be economically viable for industrial applications and mass production, materials should have desired useful properties at a reasonable cost and should be safe for humans and the environment during manufacturing, handling, operational use, and after disposal. The discovery of novel materials is followed by a gradual improvement of properties by compositional adjustment and thermal or mechanical treatment. Consequently, with time, good materials become inferior to the best. There are several known classes of inexpensive materials with a giant magnetocaloric effect, and the search continues.
Highlights
A change of temperature T can be converted to electricity [1]
Solid-solid phase transitions in magnetocaloric materials can be used for energy transformations: for cooling and heat pumping [10,16,17] at various T, including cryogenic and room temperature (RT), as well as for generating electricity from a changing temperature [1,18]
Caloric materials have a wide range of properties, among which there are the caloric effects associated with a reversible change of entropy or temperature due to a variation of external fields
Summary
A change of temperature T can be converted to electricity [1]. A significant fraction of consumed electricity is used for heat pumping, which results in a targeted cooling or heating [2]. Under adiabatic condition, when there is no heat exchange between a material and the environment, a change of internal entropy ∆S of a material by an external stimulus is compensated by a change in its temperature ∆T. This phenomenon is called the caloric effect, which is typically the largest at a phase transition. Solid-solid phase transitions in magnetocaloric materials can be used for energy transformations: for cooling and heat pumping [10,16,17] at various T, including cryogenic and room temperature (RT), as well as for generating electricity from a changing temperature [1,18]. The number of known materials (composed from a finite set of chemical elements, see Figure 1) and the largest known MCE increase with time, see Figure 2
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