As a substitute for harmful refrigerants in air conditioners, scientists develop new electrothermal materials
CTOnews.com, November 23 (Xinhua) mainstream air conditioners and heat pumps mainly use refrigerant gas to cool or heat houses and buildings, but this refrigerant brings potential harm to the environment.
European scientists have explored a new way to make air-conditioning systems stop using refrigerants and compressors and instead use electric fields to improve environmental pollution.
The study, recently published in the journal Science and developed by a scientific team at the Belvo Institute for Science and Technology in Luxembourg, outlines the ability of new ceramic-based "electrocaloric" materials to cool or heat without the use of dangerous or potentially polluting gases.
This material has a strong electrothermal effect. After exposure to the electric field, the electrically unbalanced atoms in the material are forced to arrange in a single direction like a comb. By reducing the entropy level (entropy levels), the arranged atoms begin to vibrate faster and achieve the heating effect.
The reverse effect can be achieved by turning off the electric field, where the material becomes cooler than the ambient temperature and removes heat from the fluid, and scientists have successfully started the hot and cold cycle in a laboratory environment.
CTOnews.com attached the address of the paper: Junning Li et al.,High cooling performance in a double-loop electrocaloric heat pump.Science382801-805 (2023) .DOI: 10.1126/science.adi5477.
