Barocaloric effect and the pressure induced solid state refrigerator

The current refrigerators are based on the heating and cooling of fluids under external pressure variation. The great inconvenience of this refrigeration technology is the damage caused to the environment by the refrigerant fluids. In this paper, we discuss the magnetic barocaloric effect, i.e., the heating or cooling of magnetic materials under pressure variation and its application in the construction of refrigerators using solid magnetic compounds as refrigerant materials and pressure as the external agent. The discussion presented in this paper points out that such a pressure induced solid state refrigerator can be very interesting because it is not harmful to the environment and can exhibit a good performance. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3556740]