Scientists Create An Eco-Friendly Alternative for Air Conditioners

Air conditioners have never become more essential than ever as heat waves have become rampant. These and other cooling technologies employ hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants, potent greenhouse gases, and significant climate change drivers.

However, a prototype device has been developed by scientists to provide an eco-friendly alternative to air conditioners by using solid refrigerants to cool a room.

Using Solid Refrigerants

As reported first by SciTechDaily, the prototype was presented by researchers on Tuesday, Aug. 23, at the American Chemical Society's (ACS) fall meeting.

According to Adam Slavney, Ph.D., who presented the findings at the symposium, installing an air conditioner or tossing one away is already a big driver of global warming.

The refrigerants utilized in these systems have a 1,000 times greater greenhouse gas potential than carbon dioxide. During handling or disposal, they may unintentionally leak out of systems.

Solid refrigerants then might be the best option because, unlike gases, solids won't seep from air conditioning equipment into the environment.

A viable solution would be using barocaloric materials, which is a family of solid refrigerants that function similarly to conventional gas-liquid cooling systems. They undergo heat cycles by changing pressure; however, in this instance, the pressure triggers a phase change from solid to solid.

But Barocaloric methods have a significant drawback. In particular, the majority of these materials need high pressures to drive heat cycles. The systems require costly, specialized equipment impractical for cooling applications in the real world to generate these pressures.

Hence, the research team had to develop a ground-breaking prototype that shows how these novel materials can be used in an actual cooling system.

Components of the Prototype

There are three basic components to the device. One is a metal tube filled with a liquid inert substance like water or oil and a solid refrigerant. A hydraulic piston that exerts pressure on the liquid is another component of the contraption.

The liquid also aids in carrying heat throughout the system and aids in the transfer of that pressure to the refrigerant.

The team has demonstrated that the barocaloric materials perform as functional refrigerants by converting pressure changes into complete temperature-changing cycles after overcoming a number of engineering obstacles.

Now that they have developed the device, the scientists intend to test several barocaloric materials, including those that function at lower pressures and better conduct heat.

The researchers believe that solid-state refrigerants could replace present air conditioning systems and other cooling technologies if they are combined with the right material.

The Harvard University Materials Science Research and Engineering Center, the Harvard Climate Change Solutions Fund, and the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation provided assistance and financing for the study.

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Written by Joaquin Victor Tacla