Potential for cost effective magnetocaloric air conditioning systems

Magnetic refrigeration is an emerging technology that exploits the magnetocaloric effect found in solid-state refrigerants. The combination of solid-state refrigerants, water-based heat transfer fluids, and high efficiency will lead to environmentally desirable products with minimal contributions to global warming. Among the numerous applications of refrigeration technology, air conditioning applications provide the largest aggregate cooling power and use the greatest quantity of electric energy. The primacy of the air conditioning application makes the establishment of cost targets for this application an essential feature of the R&D plan for magnetic refrigeration technology. A preliminary assessment of the permanent magnet costs and magnetocaloric material costs indicates that, for suitably chosen materials and operating conditions, these costs lay well below the total manufactured costs for vapor compression based air conditioners.