Colossal and reversible barocaloric effect in liquid-solid-transition materials n-alkanes.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 35105867.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-022-28229-4 and PMC identifier 8807803.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Emerging caloric cooling technology provides a green alternative to conventional vapor-compression technology which brings about serious environmental problems. However, the reported caloric materials are much inferior to their traditional counterparts in cooling capability. Here we report the barocaloric (BC) effect associated with the liquid-solid-transition (L-S-T) in n-alkanes. A low-pressure of ~50 MPa reversibly triggers an entropy change of ~700 J kg-1 K-1, comparable to those of the commercial refrigerants in vapor-based compression systems. The Raman study and theoretical calculations reveal that applying pressure to the liquid state suppresses the twisting and random thermal motions of molecular chains, resulting in a lower configurational entropy. When the pressure is strong enough to drive the L-S-T, the configurational entropy will be fully suppressed and induce the colossal BC effect. This work could open a new avenue for exploring the colossal BC effect by evoking L-S-T materials.