Electrocaloric Cooling Materials and Devices for Zero-Global-Warming-Potential, High-Efficiency Refrigeration

Electrocaloric cooling technologies, enabled by the discovery of the giant electrocaloric effect in dielectrics more than a decade ago, represents a zero-global-warming-potential, environment-benign cooling alternative. Benefited from its nature as an electricity-driven capacitor, the electrocaloric working body renders the great advantages in the energy efficiency and the device integration. The decade-long efforts on advancing the technology revealed many promising material candidates with matured manufacturing protocols, as well as intriguing device prototypes for applications beyond the traditional vapor compression based cooling. This article presents the recent advances in electrocaloric cooling technologies, from material improvements to device demonstrations. The environmental impact and the energy efficiency of the technology were evaluated by the total effective warming impact and the material COP, respectively. In addition to the current progresses achieved by the decade-long research effort, the existing challenges and potential opportunities brought by the electrocaloric refrigeration will be discussed.