When ice forms, salt is added to the road. A new method of heating and cooling has been developed by researchers at the Berkeley Lab. They describe the technique in a paper published in the journal Science.
When a material changes phase, Ionocaloric cooling takes advantage of how heat is stored or released. A material that is melted absorbs heat from the environment. The ionocaloric cycle causes this phase and temperature change through the flow of salts.
One day, researchers hope that the method could provide efficient heating and cooling, which accounts for more than half of the energy used in homes, and help phase out current "vapor compression" systems, which use gases with high global warming potential. Replacing the gases with solid and liquid components would eliminate the risk of escaping into the atmosphere.
Drew Lilley is a graduate research assistant at Berkeley Lab and is a candidate for a PhD. The ionocaloric cycle has the ability to meet all of those goals.
Finding a solution that replaces current refrigerants is necessary for countries to meet their climate change goals. Over the next 25 years, the agreement commits signatories to reduce production and consumption of hydrofluorocarbons. HFCs are powerful greenhouse gases that can trap heat thousands of times more effectively than carbon dioxide.
There are several types of "caloric" cooling in development. Magnetism, pressure, stretching, and electric fields are some of the methods used to manipulate solid materials. Solid-to-liquid phase changes can be driven by ion cooling. It is easier to get heat in or out of the system when the material is pumpable.
The theory behind the ionocaloric cycle was laid out by Lilley and Prasher. It has the potential to compete with or even surpass the efficiency of the majority of systems today.
They showed the technique to the public. Lilley used a salt made with both salt and carbonate.
Lilley said that there's potential to have refrigerants that are GWP- negative. If you use carbon dioxide as an input, it could be carbon- negative. CO 2 could be used from carbon capture.
Current can change the melting point of a material. When the material is melted, it gives off heat from the surroundings, and when the material is solidified, it gives off heat as well. The first experiment showed a temperature change of 25 degrees Celsius using less than one watt of power.
Prasher said that they were trying to balance the GWP of the refrigerant, energy efficiency, and the cost of the equipment. Our data seems to be very promising on all three of these aspects.
The cycles can be used for applications such as water heating or industrial heating. The team is trying to figure out how the technique can scale to support large amounts of cooling, improve the amount of temperature change the system can support, and improve the efficiency.
Prasher said that they have shown that it can work with the new thermodynamic cycle and framework. It is time for experimentation to test different combinations of materials and techniques.
Lilley and Prasher have received a patent for their invention of the ionocaloric refrigeration cycle.
Drew Lilley and his team wrote about the Ionocaloric refrigeration cycle in science. There is a science.ade1696.
Journal information: Science
All Rights Reserved © 2024
