Toward zero-electricity, zero-carbon refrigeration using advanced elastocaloric cooling

Refrigeration accounts for approx. 17 % of global electricity consumption. Currently, gas compression systems dominate the market, but they use climate-damaging gaseous refrigerants with high global warming potential. A promising alternative is elastocaloric cooling processes, which do not exhibit the climate-damaging effect of solid-state refrigerant and have high resource and energy efficiency.

Dr. Jingyuan Xu's research project aims to develop high-performance elastocaloric cooling devices. The focus is on cooling in the miniature range, such as cooling electronic chips or temperature control of bioanalytical chips. At the same time, the aim is to lay a foundation for future climate-neutral cooling devices in the macroscale, which could be tapped through successful upscaling.