Nr. I18 - Magnetocaloric materials not only for cooling applications

Approved Industrial Partnership Programme

Number	I18.
Title	Magnetocaloric materials not only for cooling applications (MCM)
Executive organisational unit	BUW
Programme management	Prof.dr. E. Brück
Duration	2008-2012
Cost estimate	M€ 1.3
Partner(s)	BASF Future Business GmbH

Objectives

This programme aims at better understanding and improved properties of novel magnetocaloric materials. The relation between structure and magnetic properties and the kinetics of magnetocaloric effects are to be studied. The programme includes the search for new materials with yet better performance. Additionally the optimal route of large-scale production will be investigated. Finally the design and composition of composite magnetic regenerators will be modeled and tested.

Background, relevance and implementation

Magnetocaloric refrigeration is a totally new technology, which employ the very efficient coupling between spin degrees of freedom in a solid with the vibrational states of the atoms. In combination with the field generated by a permanent magnet this opens the way to very energy efficient heat pumps. It is expected that magnetocaloric heat pumps need 50% less energy. As additional environmental advantage of this technology one should consider that these heat pumps do not use gases, but employ a solid as working material, which brings along ease of recycling. Until recently, the bottleneck of this technology was the limited availability of suitable magnetic materials.
To accelerate the lab to market process, BASF and the academic research group, team up and join forces. In this way we expect to further improve the performance and enable the availability on an industrial scale, in the near future. The later is a prerequisite to market introduction of any magnetocaloric device.