English

Large barocaloric effects at low pressures in natural rubber

Materials Science 2018-03-19 v4

Abstract

Barocaloric effect in vulcanized natural rubber (V-NR) has been investigated. Direct measurements of the temperature change ({\Delta}T) around room temperature (283-333 K) resulted in large values, above 10 K, for a pressure change of 173 MPa. A power law was proposed to fit {\Delta}T as function of the maximum pressure, showing to be suitable for the barocaloric effect in V-NR. Strain was measured as a function of temperature at constant pressures in order to obtain the isothermal entropy change ({\Delta}ST). At 293 K, we obtained a {\Delta}ST of 21 J.kg-1K-1 for a pressure change of only 43.4 MPa. The results presented in this work are compared with those reported recently for PVDF-TrFE-CTFE polymer, showing a better barocaloric performance for V-NR in similar temperature and pressure ranges. These findings evidence the high potential of V-NR for application in solid-state refrigeration based on confined compression, opening new possibilities for i-caloric materials.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1701.05237,
  title  = {Large barocaloric effects at low pressures in natural rubber},
  author = {Érik O. Usuda and Nicolau M. Bom and Alexandre Magnus G. Carvalho},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1701.05237},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

15 pages, 6 figures, 1 table. Correction of Figure 5 and COP value