The refrigerator of the future will be green, magnetic and smaller: a new technology based on magnetic refrigeration will replace refrigerant gases.
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves himIl refrigerator of the future will be green, magnetic and more small: a new technology based on magnetic refrigeration will replace the refrigerant gases with solid materials with magnetic properties.
Di magnetic refrigerationactually, we had been talking about it for years, but only recently have prototypes come out. The new magnetic refrigerators will in fact be exhibited in Turin, at the international conference on magnetic refrigeration at room temperature organized by the National Institute of Metrological Research (Inram) scheduled from 12 to 14 September.
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By now almost everyone knows that the weak point of classic refrigerators is the refrigerant: some, such as ammonia or sulfur dioxide, are a lot toxic, others are flammable, such as butane. Then there are more modern solutions such as chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, which are not dangerous for humans, but harmful to the ozone layer.
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The same can be said for some variants of CFCs, the so-called HFCs, which however have proved to be very powerful greenhouse gases, 10-30 thousand times more than carbon dioxide. And even the electricity consumption of a refrigerator is not low: a model in class A + consumes about 1 kWh per year for each liter of cooled volume.
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How magnetic refrigeration works
Magnetic refrigeration systems are based on properties of materials (solid rather than fluid) which increase or decrease their temperature due to the application and removal of a magnetic field, called "magnetocaloric". If these materials are exposed to a magnetic field, they become magnetized; if they are subtracted from it, instead, they absorb heat to return to the demagnetized state, cooling the surrounding environment (magnetocaloric effect: an object heats up when exposed to a magnetic field, cools when the exposure ends).
In this way, refrigerants do not disperse into the environment, while the materials used can be recycled. Finally, compared to traditional refrigerators, “the prototypes already made are more efficient from an energy point of view, more silent and can even have smaller dimensions”, explains Elena Olivetti of the Inrim.
The refrigerator of the future then? It does not pollute and has recyclable materials. Another great way to be green in the kitchen too, but it remains only to understand how much it will cost.
Germana Carillo
