Investigations of a Magnetic Refrigerator Prototype

The impact of synthetic refrigerants on the environment as well as the legal safety obligations drive the refrigeration industry to seek for new ways for completely phasing out greenhouse gases or for decreasing their charge in numerous installations. In order to be free from synthetic refrigerants, industries are continuously searching for environmentally friendly and suitable new technologies that will enable high energy savings, therefore reducing indirect CO2 emissions. During the last fifteen years, both, namely the load reduction of the refrigerants in the installations and the use of natural, non-flammable, environmentally friendly refrigerants have been the preferred options by many end-users. Since the discovery of the high polarization permanent magnet in Nd-Fe-B, the giant magnetocaloric effect in Gd5Ge2Si2 and the development of the higher performance magnetic cooling systems close to room temperature, intensive studies were motivated on the magnetocaloric materials and magnetic cooling devices In this paper we present an innovative cooling machine based on the magnetocaloric effect. The magnetic cooling is a promising technology in refrigeration systems presenting relevant advantages if compared to the standard technology, based on gas compression, such as a decrease of energy consumption (high efficiency) and reduction of the acoustic and environmental pollution.