Magnetocaloric effect in GdNi2 for cryogenic gas liquefaction studied in magnetic fields up to 50 T
Sergey Taskaev, Vladimir Khovaylo, Konstantin Skokov, Wei Liu, Eduard Bykov, Maxim Ulyanov, Dmitriy Bataev, A. Basharova, M. Kononova, Daniil Plakhotskiy, Mikhail Bogush, Tino Gottschall, Oliver Gutfleisch
Abstract
Natural gases have played a significant role in different sectors of the global economy. Recent analyses have shown that the world's gas consumption doubled over the last three decades; further growth of the gas consumption is predicted, rising to be 23%–28% of the total primary energy demand by 2030. Therefore, liquefaction of natural gases rapidly gains global importance. In this context, magnetic refrigeration emerges as a modern energy-saving technique, which is an alternative to the traditional gas-compression refrigeration. This paper is devoted to the study of the magnetocaloric effect in magnetic fields up to 10 T on a representative of the Laves phase alloys, GdNi2, which is considered as a perspective material for liquefaction of natural gases. For a magnetic field change of 10 T, the magnetic entropy change ΔSm ≈ −17 J/kg K and the adiabatic temperature change ΔTad ≈ 6.8 K was attained around Curie temperature TC = 70 K. The maximal value of the adiabatic temperature change measured directly in pulsed magnetic fields up to 50 T is ΔTad ≈ 15 K.