Cooling without warming: New Materials for Environmentally Friendly Refrigeration

Improving energy efficiency and mitigating climate change are current topics of significant global interest. Magnetic refrigeration can help in the realization of these goals. Unlike the conventional refrigerators, which use greenhouse effect related gases, thereby contributing to global warming, magnetic refrigeration is environmentally friendly. In addition, this technology is about 20-30{\%} more energy efficient than the current cooling technology. Magnetic refrigeration technology utilizes the phenomenon of magnetocaloric effect (MCE), the process of heating and cooling of magnetic material when exposed to an external magnetic field. Magnetic materials exhibiting large MCE near room temperature are desired for application in this technology. In this study, we prepare a series of Mn0.5Fe0.5$+$xNi1-xSi0.94Al0.06 materials with potential application in magnetic refrigeration, using a conventional arc-melting technique. These materials are composed of cheap and non-toxic elements that address some drawbacks associated with several previously developed materials. The structural, magnetic, and magnetocaloric properties of these materials will be presented.