Barocaloric effect of elastomers and plastic crystals: an outlook

TL;DR

This review discusses the potential of elastomers and plastic crystals exhibiting the barocaloric effect as environmentally friendly alternatives for solid-state cooling, highlighting recent advances and future outlooks.

Contribution

It compiles and compares recent research findings on barocaloric effects in elastomers and plastic crystals, providing a comprehensive outlook on their potential for cooling applications.

Findings

Materials show significant caloric responses near room temperature.

Plastic crystals and elastomers are promising for environmentally friendly cooling.

The review identifies key trends and future research directions.

Abstract

The urge for efficient and environmentally friendly alternatives for the current gas-based refrigeration is becoming more critical due to global warming and overpopulation. Among the main candidates, solid-state-based cooling technology is appealing to substitute the conventional systems. Recently, attention has been turned to the barocaloric effect in advanced materials, namely, plastic crystals and elastomers, with reports revealing great caloric responses around room temperature for a series of materials. In this sense, this review has the goal of collecting, organizing and comparing the results from the literature to provide an outlook on the subject.