'Dissolution Barocaloric' Cooling Opens New Path to Zero-Carbon Refrigeration

'Dissolution barocaloric' cooling opens new path to zero-carbon refrigeration

A research team led by Prof. Li Bing from the Institute of Metal Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, together with collaborators, has overcome a longstanding bottleneck in refrigeration technology. Their findings, published in Nature on January 22, introduce a novel cooling method based on the "dissolution barocaloric effect," which offers a promising zero-carbon alternative to traditional refrigeration.

Extreme barocaloric effect at dissolution

Refrigeration is indispensable to modern society1, yet the dominant vapour-compression systems rely on environmentally harmful fluorocarbon refrigerants with high global warming potential2–4. Solid-state caloric refrigeration offers a low-carbon alternative5–7, but its practical deployment has been hindered by limited cooling capacity and the inefficient indirect heat transfer that requires secondary fluids. Here we report an extreme barocaloric…