New Metal Alloy Creates Green Cooling Technologies

A team of scientists have developed a new metal alloy system that could produce green cooling technologies, according to a study from the Rochester Institute of Technology.

The new alloy system could generate commercially magnetic refrigerants and eco-friendly cooling systems. The main component of the study is an iron-based alloy, which can be vital in creating cooling technologies for future generations, according to the researchers.

The new technology uses magnetic fields that change refrigerants' temperatures without the coolant gases, which contribute to global warming. This thermodynamic effectm, known as the "magnetocaloric effect," allows magnetic refrigeration to be an environmentally friendly and effective approach to cooling technologies.

The new alloy is used as a replacement for rare-earth metals, which are mostly produced in China and are used in modern magnets. The use of these magnets have environmental and geological concerns, according the researchers.

"We created alloys containing four and five different elements whose properties helped our theory collaborators develop a calculation that predicts the magnetic properties of a larger set of compounds that have not yet been synthesized," said Casey Miller, author of the study. "Now we have identified hundreds of new alloy combinations that could be useful."

The findings of this study were published in Scientific Reports.

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