A New Alloy Developed That Can Act As Alternative Magnetic Refrigerant to Minimize GHGs

Source-This post on new alloy developed has been created based on the article “A new alloy developed can act as alternative magnetic refrigerant for minimizing greenhouse gas emissions” published in “PIB” on 25 January 2024.

Why in The News?

A team from N. Bose National Centre for Basic Science (an autonomous institute of the department of science and Technology (DST)) experimented with a certain type of alloys called all-transition metal based Heusler alloys (magnetic intermetallics with face-centered cubic crystal structure) in their search for material exhibiting giant reversible.

About the Research

Current research is focused on developing new magnetic materials such as refrigerants.
There are 3 critical criteria need to be fulfilled.
1) The material must be capable of operating for millions of cycles without any fatigue and failure
2) The material must have high thermal conductivity
3) The material should respond to external magnetic field of about 2 T (Tesla) which can be generated by permanent magnets.

Since most of the materials developed so far show giant magneto caloric effect (GMCE) only at fields as high as 5 T, there is an urgent need to look for materials in which GMCE is achieved in lower fields.
Researcher have chosen Ni (Co)-Mn-Ti Heusler system because such systems often exhibit multifunctional properties with ultrahigh mechanical stability because of their intrinsic d-d hybridization.

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What is Magnetic Cooling Effect?

Magnetic cooling effect (MCE) is defined as the reversible temperature change of a magnetic material when it is subjected to an external applied magnetic field.
In the magnetic refrigeration cycle, a magnetic field is applied on the magnetic material under an adiabatic process (no exchange of heat with the surrounding).
Initially randomly oriented magnetic moments get aligned along the external magnetic field, resulting in the heating of the magnetic material. This heat is transferred from the material to the ambience.
When the magnetic field is removed during adiabatic demagnetization, the magnetic moments of the material become randomized, resulting in a decrease in temperature below the ambient temperature.
This process causes the material to absorb heat from the surrounding heat-transfer medium.

What is Magneto Caloric Effect?

Magnetocaloric effect, MCE, is heating or cooling of a magnetic material upon application or removal of magnetic field.
Materials that display a significant MCE are called magnetocaloric materials.

Significance of the research

1) Magnetic refrigeration offers an energy-efficient and environment-friendly cooling technology as an alternative to the vapor-cycle refrigeration technology in use today.
2) Magnetic refrigerators for household, industrial, and technological applications can be fabricated in future.

Heusler compounds-Heusler compounds are magnetic intermetallics with face-centered cubic crystal structure and a composition of XYZ (half-Heuslers) or X2YZ (full-Heuslers), where X and Y are transition metals and Z is in the p-block.

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