Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ElectroCool (Toward efficient and environmentally-friendly cooling using active electrocaloric regeneration)
Reporting period: 2023-09-01 to 2025-08-31
Cooling accounts for 17 % of total global electricity consumption. Vapor compression cooling dominated the markets, which uses refrigerants that can leak to the environment and exhibits low efficiency. By contrast, cooling based on an electric-field driven change in temperature of certain materials, i.e. the electrocaloric (EC) effect, promises an environmentally-friendly technology with high efficiency. However, three key obstacles have prevented EC cooling from becoming commercially relevant: small temperature span, low fatigue life, and high applied voltage.
This project had an ambitious goal of gaining insight into a regenerative EC cooler, which would enable the design and fabrication of the first regenerative EC device exhibiting a large temperature span with long fatigue life. Performance targets include a temperature span of 20 K, a fatigue life of 10000 cycles, and a low applied voltage. The research was supposed to be organized into three work packages:
(1) advanced material characterization,
(2) high-fidelity system modelling,
(3) demonstration of a high-performance demonstrator.
To achieve this challenging goal, a strong collaboration was going to take place between three leading institutions, i.e. the Technical University of Denmark, the University of Cambridge, and the University of Barcelona.
The project would demonstrate a new concept of a robust, high performance electrocaloric cooler, which was expected to transform the current cooling technology to the new one that is environmentally friendly and efficient.
This project had an ambitious goal of gaining insight into a regenerative EC cooler, which would enable the design and fabrication of the first regenerative EC device exhibiting a large temperature span with long fatigue life. Performance targets include a temperature span of 20 K, a fatigue life of 10000 cycles, and a low applied voltage. The research was supposed to be organized into three work packages:
(1) advanced material characterization,
(2) high-fidelity system modelling,
(3) demonstration of a high-performance demonstrator.
To achieve this challenging goal, a strong collaboration was going to take place between three leading institutions, i.e. the Technical University of Denmark, the University of Cambridge, and the University of Barcelona.
The project would demonstrate a new concept of a robust, high performance electrocaloric cooler, which was expected to transform the current cooling technology to the new one that is environmentally friendly and efficient.
No work was carried out in the project, as the project never started.
Termination of the project has become necessary for the following reason: The researcher, Jingyuan Xu, has decided to resign from her fellowship as she is taking up a new position at another university. Unfortunately, it is not possible to combine the tasks of the new position with the obligations of the fellowship. Therefore, the beneficiary, DTU, terminates the MSCA project 101066474 -ElectroCool.
Termination of the project has become necessary for the following reason: The researcher, Jingyuan Xu, has decided to resign from her fellowship as she is taking up a new position at another university. Unfortunately, it is not possible to combine the tasks of the new position with the obligations of the fellowship. Therefore, the beneficiary, DTU, terminates the MSCA project 101066474 -ElectroCool.
Due to termination no results were achieved.