Electrocaloric cooling system utilizing latent heat transfer for high power density
J. Metzdorf, Patrick Corhan, D. R. Bach, S. Hirose, Dirk Lellinger, Stefan Mönch, Frank Kühnemann, Olaf Schäfer-Welsen, Kilian Bartholomé
Abstract
Abstract Electrocalorics (EC) is potentially more efficient than refrigeration and heat pumps based on compressors and does not need detrimental fluids. Current EC-prototypes use solid-state contact or forced convection with liquids to transfer the heat generated from the EC-material, which inhibits high cycle frequencies and thus limits power density. Here we present a heatpipe system solution, where the heat transfer is realized through condensation and evaporation of ethanol as a heat transfer fluid. Our prototype with lead scandium tantalate (PST) EC-material working at 5 Hz shows a specific cooling power of 1.5 W g −1 . This is one order of magnitude more than previously reported for ceramic EC-prototypes. Overcoming the limits of slow heat transfer is essential to reach high specific cooling powers enabling a future commercial success of the technology.