For centuries, refrigeration tech has stayed the same — energy-hungry and reliant on harmful gases. Enter magnetocaloric cooling: a new solution claiming to be 30% more energy-efficient than current cooling systems. And it’s scalable. From fridges to cooling buildings and server farms.

  • Krudler@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    17 days ago

    Here’s a quick summary.

    The overall configuration is fundamentally identical to a basic refrigerator.

    The difference is that instead of using a compressor to cause phase change in a fluid, they pass water over blocks of material that are either hot or cold.

    The materials are made hot or cold by the application of a field, which changes the alignment of the magnetic moments.

    When they apply the field, it necessarily adds energy (heat) to the block and when they remove the field, the magnetic moments redistribute and it releases the heat.

    The rest is just a series of bog standard pumps and radiators.