Elastocaloric materials have the potential to replace current air conditioning and heating systems and can provide significant energy savings when combined with technologies such as photovoltaics.
A team from Saarland University in Germany has secured funding from the European Innovation Council (EIC) Pathfinder program to develop elastocaloric heating and cooling technology as an alternative to heat pumps and air conditioning systems.
The €4 million ($4.36 million) EIC Pathfinder Challenge research project aims to develop a prototype for decentralized room air conditioning within three years. According to the research team, the technology is rated by the World Economic Forum (WEF) as one of the “TOP Ten Technologies 2024.” The US Department of Energy and the European Commission have also declared it the most promising alternative to conventional heating and cooling.
The solid-state heating and cooling process is based on transporting heat into or out of a room by loading and unloading a so-called shape memory material, for example in the form of wires. The material absorbs heat when it is loaded, for example when it is pulled, and releases it when the load is removed.
The researchers, led by elastocalorics pioneer Paul Motzki, use the superelastic nickel-titanium alloy for this. Materials made from this alloy return to their original shape after deformation because they have two crystal lattices and therefore two phases. For example, while water takes over the solid, liquid and gaseous phases, in nickel-titanium both phases are solid but merge into each other.
Motzki, who holds a bridge professorship between the University of Saarland and the Center for Mechatronics and Automation Technology (ZeMA), leads a consortium as part of the SMACool project, which is now funded by the EIC. The consortium also includes the universities of Ljubljana and Naples, as well as the Irish company Exergyn.
The aim is to jointly develop a prototype of an air conditioning unit for residential buildings. Fresh air flows in through narrow ventilation slits in the outer walls and is heated or cooled as needed until the desired temperature for the room behind it is reached.
“With our technology, we do not want to heat and cool homes with a central system, but each individual room in a decentralized and individual way,” says Motzki.
The compact unit to be developed could also be installed directly in new buildings with ventilation systems in the future.
With an electrocaloric system, temperature differences of approximately 20 C can be achieved during cooling and heating. The technology could become an alternative to conventional cooling and heating methods, as it does not require refrigerants and uses significantly less energy.
“The efficiency of elastocaloric materials is more than ten times higher than that of current air conditioning or heating systems – they will require significantly less electricity,” Motzki said.
Teams in Saarbrücken, Germany, have spent about 15 years researching and developing a technology that uses thin plates of nickel-titanium to achieve optimal cooling or heating effects in the bloodstream. This includes creating a cooling and heating demonstrator and a continuously operating refrigerator.
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