Continuous and efficient elastocaloric air cooling by coil-bending

Xueshi Li; Peng Hua; Qingping Sun

doi:10.1038/s41467-023-43611-6

Continuous and efficient elastocaloric air cooling by coil-bending

Nat Commun. 2023 Dec 2;14(1):7982. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-43611-6.

Authors

Xueshi Li¹, Peng Hua^{2

3}, Qingping Sun^{4

5}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China.
² Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China. penghua@ust.hk.
³ HKUST Shenzhen-Hong Kong Collaborative Innovation Research Institute, Futian, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. penghua@ust.hk.
⁴ Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China. meqpsun@ust.hk.
⁵ HKUST Shenzhen-Hong Kong Collaborative Innovation Research Institute, Futian, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. meqpsun@ust.hk.

Abstract

Elastocaloric cooling has emerged as an eco-friendly technology capable of eliminating greenhouse-gas refrigerants. However, its development is limited by the large driving force and low efficiency in uniaxial loading modes. Here, we present a low-force and energy-efficient elastocaloric air cooling approach based on coil-bending of NiTi ribbons/wires. Our air cooler achieves continuous cold outlet air with a temperature drop of 10.6 K and a specific cooling power of 2.5 W g^-1 at a low specific driving force of 26 N g^-1. Notably, the cooler shows a system coefficient of performance of 3.7 (ratio of cooling power to rotational mechanical power). These values are realized by the large specific heat transfer area (12.6 cm² g^-1) and the constant cold zone of NiTi wires. Our coil-bending system exhibits a competitive performance among caloric air coolers.

Abstract

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