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Elastocaloric systems could replace current air conditioning and heating systems, and offer significant energy savings when combined with technologies such as photovoltaics.
A team from Saarland University (Germany) has received funding from the European Innovation Council (ERC) Pathfinder programme to develop elastocaloric heating and cooling technology as an alternative to heat pumps and air conditioning systems.
The EIC’s €4 million (US$4.36 million) Pathfinder Challenge research project aims to develop a prototype for decentralised room air conditioning within three years. According to the research team, this technology is rated by the World Economic Forum (WEF) as one of the “Top Ten Technologies for 2024”. The US Department of Energy and the European Commission have also declared it the most promising alternative to conventional heating and cooling.
The solid-state heating and cooling process is based on transporting heat into or out of a room by charging and discharging a so-called shape-memory material, for example in the form of wires. The material absorbs heat when charged, for example by pulling on it, and releases it again when the charge is removed.
The researchers, led by Paul Motzki, a pioneer in elastocalorics, use the superelastic alloy of nickel and titanium to achieve this. Materials made from this alloy return to their original shape after deformation because they have two crystal lattices and therefore two phases. While water, for example, assumes the solid, liquid and gas phases, in nickel-titanium both phases are solid but melt together.
Motzki, who holds a bridge chair between Saarland University and the Centre for Mechatronics and Automation Technology (ZeMA), both in Germany, is leading a consortium within the framework of the SMACool project, which is now funded by the EIC. The consortium also involves the universities of Ljubljana (Slovenia) and Naples (Italy), as well as the Irish company Exergyn.
The goal is to jointly develop a prototype air conditioning unit for residential buildings. Fresh air will flow through narrow ventilation slots in the exterior walls and be heated or cooled as needed until the desired temperature is reached for each room.
“With our technology, we don’t want to heat and cool houses with a central system, but rather each room in a decentralized and individual way,” explains Motzki.
The compact unit to be developed could also be installed directly in new buildings with ventilation systems in the future.
With an electrocaloric system, temperature differences of around 20 C can be achieved when cooling and heating. This technology could become an alternative to conventional cooling and heating methods, since it does not require refrigerants and consumes much less energy.
“The efficiency of elastocaloric materials is more than ten times higher than that of current air conditioning or heating systems: they will require much less electricity,” says Motzki.
For around 15 years, teams in Saarbrücken, Germany, have been researching and developing a technology that uses thin nickel-titanium foils to achieve optimal cooling or heating effects in circulatory systems. This includes the creation of a cooling and heating demonstrator and a continuously operating chiller. |
