Magnetic Refrigeration

Nearly every material, whether it is solid, liquid, or gas, expands when its temperature goes up and contracts when its temperature goes down. This property, called thermal expansion, makes a hot air balloon float, and the phenomenon has been harnessed to create thermostats that automatically turn a home furnace on and off. Railroads, bridges, and buildings are designed with this property in mind, and they are…

In the field of molecular magnetism, the design of devices with technological applications at the nanoscale—quantum computing, molecular spintronics, magnetic cooling, nanomedicine, high-density information storage, etc.—requires those magnetic molecules that are placed on the surface to preserve their structure, functionality and properties.

Crown ethers were discovered in 1967. They were then modified by adding a metal-containing unit, creating metallacrown ethers. These metallacrown ethers have been the subject of intensive research. Depending on the molecular makeup of the metallacrown ethers and their resultant architecture, the properties and, therefore, the uses of the metallacrowns can change. They have many different uses currently, and ongoing…

Article URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_refrigeration Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31912766 Points: 1 # Comments: 0

From ancient ice houses to the modern machines that we rely on to keep our food fresh, the development of refrigeration technology has been a fascinating and transformative journey. These cooling mechanisms have their roots in traditions and techniques that date back centuries even before the...

While the wheel does not need to be reinvented, there are benefits to the development of new nano-wheels, according to a multi-institute research team based in China. The group fabricated a novel family of metallic compounds, each of which exhibit unique properties desirable for next-generation technologies, such as advanced sensors.