Scale-up of Magnetocaloric Materials for High Efficiency Refrigeration

Magnetic refrigeration is a promising technology to replace compression-based refrigeration systems, offering a significant improvement in efficiency and eliminating hydrofluorocarbons. For magnetic refrigeration to move into production, economical and functioning commercially available magnetocaloric materials are needed. During this project, a furnace was installed to scale up production of General Engineering & Research’s patented magnetocaloric material compositions. This optimized material processing provided a greater than 20 percent increase in material performance and achieved the project target low-rate initial production of one kilogram per day. Magnetic refrigeration developers have most commonly used magnetocaloric material in their systems as either thin plates or sub-millimeter sized particles/spheres. General Engineering & Research successfully installed the equipment and developed the processes to produce these materials for commercial use.