Project description
Revolutionary refrigerator leveraging solid-state cooling based on barocaloric materials
Refrigeration systems are responsible for tremendous global and EU emissions, making energy-efficient refrigeration an important energy and sustainability goal. Mechanocaloric materials are a promising solution for solid-state cooling. These materials demonstrate a reversible thermal change when subjected to an external mechanical field such as pressure or stress. The EIC-funded FROSTBIT project aims to develop the first functional refrigerator based on revolutionary solid-state technology using barocaloric materials in a regenerative cooling device. The materials will be synthesised for their ability to generate recently described significant barocaloric effects around the so-called spin crossover temperatures of some molecular complexes.
Objective
Greenhouse gas emissions for refrigeration systems worldwide were in 2019 equivalent to the whole EU emissions. Long-term sustainability requires improvements in energy efficiency, with a huge return on investment obtained from even slight improvements. The mechanocaloric effect, which refers to adiabatic temperature changes induced by stress or pressure, is one of the most promising energy-saving new technology for cooling systems. Mechanocaloric research produced in only 14 years highly performing materials, overcoming electrocaloric and magnetocaloric materials. Furthermore, mechanocaloric materials use non-critical, cheap, abundant and non-toxic elements. Recent papers evidenced colossal barocaloric effects around the Spin CrossOver (SCO) temperatures for some molecular complexes. The FROSTBIT project overall objective is to develop the first operative refrigerator based on a radically new solid-state technology by using barocaloric materials in a regenerative cooling device. In more specific objectives, the project aims to 1) Design sustainable syntheses of compounds for barocaloric applications, exploring synthetic pathways to optimize costs and low environmental impact/low carbon footprint vs. barocaloric performances; 2); Shape SCO materials in order to obtain densified objects with centimetric sizes, study extensively their thermal, mechanical and barocaloric behaviour and explore the optimization of those properties through the preparation of composites ceramics 3) Model, design and build the constituting elements of a barocaloric refrigerator: barocaloric regenerator, thermal and pressure fluid circuits. While the technology could potentially address a wide range of temperature, as an initial step we propose to specifically design and build a refrigerator yielding 100 W of cooling power at room temperatures and providing a temperature span of at least 20 K with a target COP between 4 and 6 (corresponding to 30% of Carnot efficiency).
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- engineering and technology environmental engineering ecosystem-based management climatic change mitigation
- engineering and technology mechanical engineering thermodynamic engineering
- engineering and technology materials engineering composites
- engineering and technology materials engineering ceramics
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.3.1 - The European Innovation Council (EIC)
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-EIC - HORIZON EIC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-EIC-2023-PATHFINDERCHALLENGES-01
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
75794 Paris
France
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.