journal article·2025-10-03Open access

Colossal barocaloric effect in GdCl3-doped H2O for sustainable cooling

Yue Kan, Feng-Xia Hu, Jian-Tao Wang, Jia-Zheng Hao, Qiang Li, Yi-Li Cao, Fei-Ran Shen, Wen Yin, Lun-Hua He, Bo Su, Jing Wang, Ji-Rong Sun, Zhi-Guo Chen, Chang-Qing Jin, Xian-Ran Xing, Yun-Zhong Chen, Tong-Yun Zhao, Wei Zhai, Bing-Bo Wei, Bao-Gen Shen

NPG Asia Materials· Volume 17· Issue 1

Abstract

Abstract H 2 O exists everywhere and its huge latent heat across ice-water phase transition empowers it to be a potential candidate for barocaloric refrigeration applications. Here we report a colossal and reversible barocaloric effect (BCE) in doped H 2 O, where the large hysteresis caused by supercooling is solved by adding 1.33 wt% GdCl 3 . Thereby the reversible entropy change ΔS r ∼728 J kg -1 K -1 has been demonstrated under a low pressure of 0.1 GPa and a more attractive colossal one (1018 J kg -1 K -1 ) can be achieved at 0.16 GPa, exceeding those of all other BCE materials and most of the harmful Freon in vapor compression refrigeration. Neutron measurements combined with molecular dynamics simulations demonstrated that the colossal BCE originates from the breakage/formation of H-bonds in H 2 O. Phonon density of states and Raman spectra validate the change of H-bonds from perspective of dynamics. The super BCE performance and the ubiquitous, non-toxic characters make H 2 O attractive as barocaloric refrigerant for sustainable cooling, more importantly, it is inferred that H-bond engineering can be an attractive approach for designing novel caloric materials.
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Research context

OpenAlex topics: Thermal Expansion and Ionic Conductivity · Magnetic and transport properties of perovskites and related materials · Phase Change Materials Research

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