Scale-up of Magnetocaloric Materials for High Efficiency Magnetic Refrigeration
General Engineering & Research, L.L.C.
Recipient
San Diego, CA
Recipient Location
39th
Senate District
77th
Assembly District
$980,201
Amount Spent
Active
Project Status
Project Update
As of the end of 2022, the project team has met the targets for this project to provide magnetocaloric materials in the form of sub mm sized spheres and thin plates. These products are now commercially available in various quantities for purchase through GE&R's webstore at www.geandr.com. The team also now have the ability to manufacture these products at 1kg/day capacity which is our target LRIP (low rate initial production) for this project. The project is continuing to optimize manufacturing processing and perform systematic heat treatment development to improve the performance of the magnetocaloric materials. The remainder of 2023-2024 GE&R will focus on improving performance of the magnetocaloric materials to achieve a peak absolute change in entropy under 3T magnetic field of 3kJ/kg or greater for all alloys functioning in the 10-300K temperature range. To date, the project has significantly exceeded this target functionality for the 10-50K alloys, and the project is currently at this target performance for the 55-300K alloys. GE&R expects to exceed this performance by optimizing heat treatment processing.
The Issue
Magnetic refrigeration is a high efficiency refrigeration technology that uses no hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and has the potential to replace traditional vapor compression systems. Magnetic refrigeration has been shown to be up to 50% or more energy efficient compared to VCC technologies, without using environmentally hazardous materials. Magnetic refrigeration utilizes the magnetocaloric effect (MCE), which is the temperature variation of a magnetic material after exposure to a magnetic field. However, the lack of low-cost and widely available magnetocalcaloric materials is preventing the wider adoption of magnetic refrigeration technology.
Project Innovation
General Engineering & Research's (GE&R) has developed MCE compositions that meet both the performance and cost requirements to be compatible with large scale implementation of magnetic refrigeration systems. For this project, GE&R will develop the processing systems to manufacture their MCE materials in forms needed for integration into magnetic refrigeration systems (spheres and thin plates). Equipment with 1kg or larger batch processing will be installed to accommodate 1kg/day low-rate initial production. Production at this scale will allow for end users to develop and test magnetic refrigeration prototypes, and ultimately move these systems into production.
Project Goals
Project Benefits
This project will help facilitate further development and deployment of magnetic refrigeration systems, which offer significant efficiency improvements over traditional vapor compression cooling systems while using no hydrodrofluorocarbons. Increased use of magnetic refrigeration can lead to lower energy use and GHG emissions.
Affordability
Magnetic refrigeration offers a significant reduction in energy consumption compared to traditional cooling technologies that rely on vapor compression. Additionally, the recipient's MCE materials can be produced at a lower cost.
Environmental Sustainability
Magnetic refrigeration is a high efficiency refrigeration technology that uses no hydrodrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and has the potential to replace traditional vapor compression systems.
Key Project Members
Robin Ihnfeldt
Match Partners
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
General Engineering &
Research, L.L.C.
