Magnetism and large reversible room-temperature magnetocaloric properties of antiperovskite compounds ZnC1−xNxFe3−2xMn2x (0 ⩽ x ⩽ 1)

• The effects of Mn doping on physical properties of ZnCFe3−yMny were reported.
• The effects of dual doping on physcial properties of ZnC1−xNxFe3−2xMn2x werereported.
• The magnetocaloric working temperature is around 300 K for ZnC0.5N0.5Fe2Mn.
• The magnetic entropy change and RCP are 2.86 J/kg K and 220 J/kg for ZnC0.5N0.5Fe2Mn.

In this paper we report the effects of Mn substitution on the structural and magnetic properties of ZnCFe3−yMny (0 ⩽ y ⩽ 1). It is found that with increasing the doping level y the increased lattice constant, enhanced Curie temperature (TC), and decreased saturated magnetization (MS) are obtained. However, the enhancement of TC (>380 K) in ZnCFe3−yMny is not suitable to explore room-temperature magnetocaloric material. Therefore, we carry out a dual doping by N and Mn on C and Fe sites of ZnCFe3, respectively. As a result, with increasing x the lattice parameter increases while the TC and MS decrease gradually for ZnC1−xNxFe3−2xMn2x (0 ⩽ x ⩽ 1). In particular, for ZnC0.5N0.5Fe2Mn (x = 0.5) the TC (∼302 K) is tuned just at the room temperature. Correspondingly, around the TC of ZnC0.5N0.5Fe2Mn the magnetocaloric effect is considerably large with a magnetic entropy change of 2.86 J/kg K (ΔH = 4.5 T) as well as a relative cooling power (RCP) of 220 J/kg (ΔH = 4.5 T). Given the considerably large RCP, inexpensive and innoxious raw materials, and suitable operating temperature, ZnC0.5N0.5Fe2Mn is suggested to be a promising candidate for room-temperature magnetic refrigeration.