Large magnetic entropy change in Nd2In near the boiling temperature of natural gas

Natural gas is useful for the transition from traditional fossil fuels to renewable energies. The consumption of liquid natural gas has been rising, and the demand is predicted to double by 2040. In this context, magnetocaloric gas liquefaction, as an emerging and energy-saving technology, could be...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Applied physics letters 2021-07, Vol.119 (2)
Main Authors: Liu, Wei, Scheibel, Franziska, Gottschall, Tino, Bykov, Eduard, Dirba, Imants, Skokov, Konstantin, Gutfleisch, Oliver
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Applied physics
Boiling
Condensing
Entropy
Fossil fuels
Intermetallic compounds
Liquefaction
Magnetic fields
Magnetic properties
Magnetic transitions
Magnetostriction
Natural gas
Phase transitions
Thermal expansion
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Summary:Natural gas is useful for the transition from traditional fossil fuels to renewable energies. The consumption of liquid natural gas has been rising, and the demand is predicted to double by 2040. In this context, magnetocaloric gas liquefaction, as an emerging and energy-saving technology, could be an alternative to the traditional gas-compression refrigeration. In this work, we report a large magnetic entropy change of 7.42 J/kg K under a magnetic field change of 2 T in Nd2In at 109 K, which is near the boiling temperature of natural gas of 112 K. The maximum adiabatic temperature change reaches 1.13 K under a magnetic field change of 1.95 T and is fully reversible. The magnetic phase transition is confirmed to be of the first-order type with the negligible thermal hysteresis. Further investigations on the thermal expansion and the magnetostriction reveal that the magnetic transition undergoes two stages with a negligible volume change. The longitudinal strain increases with magnetic fields and then decreases. These interesting properties are useful for the practical design of a magnetocaloric natural gas liquefaction system and for the fundamental understanding of the phase transitions in other RE2In intermetallics.
ISSN:0003-6951
1077-3118
DOI:10.1063/5.0054959