Powder-extrusion and sintering of magnetocaloric LaCe(FeMnSi)13 alloy

Shaping magnetocaloric materials into thin-walled heat exchanger structures is an important step towards the development of energy efficient magnetic cooling systems. For La(FeSi)13 alloys, shaping technologies based on rapidly solidified powders rather than bulk material were proven to be advantageous, since they require a significantly shorter heat treatment in order to achieve the magnetocaloric 1:13 phase. In this work powder extrusion and sintering was applied to gas atomized LaCe(FeMnSi)13 powder. Samples with a wall-thickness of less than 300 μm, a maximum relative density of 86% and a magnetic entropy change of −11 J/kg/K (ΔH = 1 T) have been achieved. Additionally, the Curie temperature of the samples was adjusted around room temperature by hydrogenation after sintering.