International Journal of Sustainable Built Environment (2012) 1, 85101

Gulf Organisation for Research and Development

International Journal of Sustainable Built Environment

SciVerse ScienceDirect
www.sciencedirect.com

Review

Status of not-in-kind refrigeration technologies for household

space conditioning, water heating and food refrigeration
Pradeep Bansal , Edward Vineyard, Omar Abdelaziz
Building Equipment Program, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), One Bethel Valley Road, P.O. Box 2008, Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6070, USA
Received 2 February 2012; accepted 19 July 2012

Abstract
This paper presents a review of the next generation not-in-kind technologies to replace conventional vapor compression refrigeration
technology for household applications. Such technologies are sought to provide energy savings or other environmental benets for space
conditioning, water heating and refrigeration for domestic use. These alternative technologies include: thermoacoustic refrigeration, thermoelectric refrigeration, thermotunneling, magnetic refrigeration, Stirling cycle refrigeration, pulse tube refrigeration, Malone cycle
refrigeration, absorption refrigeration, adsorption refrigeration, and compressor driven metal hydride heat pumps. Furthermore, heat
pump water heating and integrated heat pump systems are also discussed due to their signicant energy saving potential for water heating
and space conditioning in households. The paper provides a snapshot of the future R&D needs for each of the technologies along with
the associated barriers. Both thermoelectric and magnetic technologies look relatively attractive due to recent developments in the materials and prototypes being manufactured.
2012 The Gulf Organisation for Research and Development. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V.
Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
Keywords: Eciency; Thermoacoustics; Thermoelectricity; Stirling; Magnetic refrigerator

Contents
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Thermoacoustic refrigeration . . . . . . . . . .
Thermoelectric refrigeration . . . . . . . . . . .
Thermotunneling (thermionic) refrigeration
Magnetic refrigeration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Corresponding author.

E-mail addresses: bansalpk@ornl.gov, bansal_pradeep@hotmail.com

(P. Bansal).
Peer review under responsibility of The Gulf Organisation for Research
and Development.

Production and hosting by Elsevier

2212-6090 2012 The Gulf Organisation for Research and Development. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijsbe.2012.07.003

86

P. Bansal et al. / International Journal of Sustainable Built Environment 1 (2012) 85101

Nomenclature
AMRR active magnetic regenerative refrigeration
CCHP combined cooling heating and power
CD-MHHP compressor driven metal hydride heat
pumps
COP
coecient of performance
HX
heat exchanger
HPWH heat pump water heater
i
electric current [A]
IHPS integrated heat pump system
K
thermal conductivity [Wm1 K1]
MCE magneto caloric eect
NIK
not-in-kind
PTR
pulse tube refrigerator
Q
heat transfer rate [W]
T
temperature [K]

6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.

13.
14.

VS
Z

variable speed
gure of merit

Greek symbols
a
seebeck coecient [VK1]
D
dierence
q
electrical resistivity [X-m]
Subscripts
C
cold
H
hot
adiabatic adiabatic process
L
low temperature
R
room temperature

Stirling cycle refrigeration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Pulse tube refrigerator (PTR) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Malone refrigeration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Absorption refrigeration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Adsorption refrigeration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Compressor-driven metal hydride heat pump . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Developments in water heating and space conditioining. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
12.1. Heat pump water heater (HPWH) using transcritical CO2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
12.2. Integrated heat pump systems (IHPS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Overall assessment of NIK technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1. Introduction
The vapor compression refrigeration has remained practically a predominant technology for well over 100 years.
The fundamental principle is to use liquidvapor and
vaporliquid phase transitions to transfer heat from a
low temperature state to a higher temperature state. It is
desirable to have these phase transitions occur at room
temperature. The ideal refrigerant for the vapor compression systems should be non-toxic, noncorrosive, ecient,
cost eective and more importantly environmentally
benign. There is a general trend of increasing demand for
heating, cooling and refrigeration services world-wide. This
will eventually lead to the increase in related CO2 emissions. This trend could be alleviated by the performance
enhancement of current heat pumping technologies and/
or the development of new energy ecient technologies.
In this context, the current paper reviews emerging
not-in-kind technologies (NIK) that oer the potential

92
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95
95
96
96
96
96
97
99
99

for signicant energy savings and environmental benets

compared to existing technologies. In addition, the status
of emerging technologies that are useful in a household,
including space conditioning, water heating and refrigeration, are discussed.
There have been a few integrated reviews of alternative
technologies in the open literature. Fischer et al. (1994) presented one of the earliest and most comprehensive summaries of not-in-kind technologies. This was then updated by
Fischer and Labinov (2000) with emphasis on economic
impact and potential commercialization. Lately there has
been a urry of activity (Radermacher et al., 2007; Dieckmann et al., 2007) in this area, where Navigant Consulting
Inc. (2009) provided an overview of some of the alternative
technologies targeting energy savings for commercial
refrigeration applications. This was followed by a report
from Brown et al. (2010) that assessed the prospects of
thermoelectric, thermionic, thermotunneling, thermoacoustic and magnetic refrigeration for space cooling and food

P. Bansal et al. / International Journal of Sustainable Built Environment 1 (2012) 85101

refrigeration applications. Most recently, Tassou et al.

(2010) provided a broader view of emerging technologies
for food refrigeration applications.
This paper evaluates the status of ten not-in-kind heat
pump technologies relevant to domestic applications,
namely thermoacoustic refrigeration, thermoelectric refrigeration, thermotunneling, magnetic refrigeration, Stirling
cycle refrigeration, pulse tube refrigeration, Malone cycle
refrigeration, absorption refrigeration, adsorption refrigeration, and compressor driven metal hydride heat pumps.
The paper also discusses the development of heat pump
water heating and integrated heat pump systems and their
respective impact on energy consumption in households. In
addition, the paper presents assessments of potential benets from alternative technologies and a brief summary of
the R&D opportunities that could develop such technologies further. Potential barriers to implement these technologies in the marketplace are discussed along with options
for each technology to achieve signicant improvements
in energy eciency or other environmental benets for
their application in space conditioning, water heating and
refrigeration in households.

87

2. Thermoacoustic refrigeration
Thermoacoustic cooling is a technology that uses highamplitude sound waves in a pressurized gas to generate a
temperature gradient across a stationary element called
the stack (Newman et al., 2006). A thermoacoustic device
is placed inside a sealed pressure vessel consisting of an
acoustic driver (e.g. a loudspeaker) that generates a highamplitude sound wave, and hence large temperature and
pressure oscillations into a resonator containing a regenerator or stack. The sound wave may be generated using
either thermal or mechanical energy. This cycle is shown
in Fig. 1(A), and consists of four principal components:
1. A stack of porous material, parallel plates, or
spiral rolls of thin sheets,
2. Hot and cold heat exchangers with large area to
volume ratio,
3. A rigid and sealed tube that may incorporate a
Helmholtz resonator to shorten the device and minimize losses, and
4. An acoustic energy source.

Fig. 1. (A) Schematic of a thermoacoustic refrigerator. (B) Working principle of a thermoacoustic refrigerator from Largrangian viewpoint.

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P. Bansal et al. / International Journal of Sustainable Built Environment 1 (2012) 85101

The sound wave causes the gas to compress and expand

adiabatically, which results in the gas to heat up and cool
down respectively. Heat is transferred from the working
uid (i.e. gas) to the stack near the phase of greatest compression and from the stack to the gas parcel near the phase
of greatest expansion. The heat is then respectively dissipated to and received from an external uid through a heat
exchanger placed at each end of the stack. The standingwave device, such as shown in Fig. 1, generates useful cooling by pumping heat from the cold heat exchanger to the
hot heat exchanger. Fig. 1(B) shows an idealized thermoacoustic refrigeration cycle, consisting of four processes:

Some continuing major diculties in achieving higher

eciencies with acoustic refrigerators have been the relatively low power density (Brown et al., 2010), low cooling
capacities, large physical size, heat conduction between
the heat exchangers and hence poor performance of the heat
exchangers (Wetzel and Herman, 1997). Design and control
of compact heat exchangers in oscillating ow presents a
unique challenge for thermoacoustic refrigeration units
with large capacities. Due to these deciencies, thermoacoustic refrigeration will continue to be a non-competitive technology for domestic applications in the foreseeable future.
3. Thermoelectric refrigeration

 12: gas parcel is compressed adiabatically while being

displaced toward the velocity node
 23: gas parcel is further compressed while heat is transferred to the stack
 34: gas parcel is expanded adiabatically while being displaced toward the pressure node
 41: gas parcel is further expanded while heat is
absorbed from the stack
The complete cycle described above resembles a series of
Brayton cycles grouped together. Thermoacoustic refrigerators employ environmentally friendly refrigerants, usually
a mixture of perfect gases, such as xenon and helium. The
stack is typically fairly short, on the order of few centimeters, and is made of a material that does not conduct heat
well but has high heat capacity (e.g. ceramic).
Although the concept of thermoacoustic refrigeration
has been around for a while, there is still no commercial system available except for few examples of advanced developments (Wollan and Swift, 2001; Naluai, 2002; Poese et al.,
2004; Hotta et al., 2009). Tijani et al. (2002) achieved a temperature of 65 C (85 F) from an optimized thermoacoustic refrigerator. An early prototype thermoacoustic
refrigerator (Swift, 1988) achieved 3 W of cooling at a temperature of 29 C (20 F) and a sink temperature of
25 C (77 F). Another prototype thermoacoustic refrigeration unit designed for an ice-cream freezer (Poese et al.,
2004; PSU, 2012) with a cooling capacity of 119 W at
24.6 C (12.3 F) and a COP of 0.81, was still well below
vapor compression system performance. Other early prototypes achieved cooling capacities from 20 W (Garrett et al.,
1993; Berhow, 1994) to as high as 10 kW (Garrett, 2002) in a
unit designed for air-conditioning applications. A recent
study by Nsofor and Ali (2009) found that, for a given frequency, there exists an optimum pressure that results in
the maximum temperature dierence, which in turn yields
in the maximum possible cooling load. The simulation/optimization study of standing-wave thermoacoustic coolers by
Paek et al. (2007) suggests that maximum second law eciency increases with temperature span and reaches a maximum for temperature lifts of around 80 C (144 F). Zink
et al. (2010) presented a study showing the environmental
motivation for thermoacoustic refrigeration with other benets being low cost and high reliability.

Thermoelectric refrigeration is based on the observation

rst made by Peltier (1834) that a direct electric current, i,
passing through a circuit formed by two dissimilar conductors or semiconductors, A and B, will cause a temperature
dierence to develop at the junctions of the two conductors. A refrigeration eect develops at the cold junction,
and heat is rejected at the hot junction. The heat produced
or absorbed at each junction can be given by:
Q aA  aB  i  T

where a is known as the Seebeck coecient and is the property (positive or negative) of the material, i the electrical
current supplied to the thermoelectric device and T is the
absolute temperature of the junction.
The absolute Seebeck coecient, a, for metals does not
exceed 50 lV per K (ASHRAE, 1981). However, a can be
much higher for semiconductor materials. The highest a
(250 lV per K) is achieved from alloys of Tellurium (Te)
doped with antimony tri-iodide (SbI3) to produce an ntype semiconductor and with excess Te to make a p-type
semiconductor. In the cooling mode, direct current passes
from the n- to p-type semiconductor materials. The temperature TC of the conductor decreases and the heat is absorbed
from the space to be cooled. This occurs when electrons pass

Fig. 2. Schematics of thermoelectric refrigeration cycle in cooling mode.

P. Bansal et al. / International Journal of Sustainable Built Environment 1 (2012) 85101

from a low energy level in the p-type material through an

interconnecting conductor to a higher energy level in the
n-type material. This heat is then rejected to the surroundings at TH. This phenomenon is illustrated in Fig. 2.
The advantages of thermoelectric refrigeration are that
it has no moving parts, no CFCs or other uids that are
hazardous to the environment (Riat and Ma, 2003), high
reliability, reduced weight, and exible operation. In order
to achieve the maximum COP of the cycle, given by Eq. (2),
TH and TC (being respectively the absolute temperatures at
the hot and cold junctions), should respectively be as low
and as high as possible, while Z (called the gure of merit
dened by Eq. (3) a temperature dependent property of
each material) should be as high as possible
q


C
1 Z T H T
 TT HC
TC
2
COPmax
 q
2
TH  TC
C
1 Z T H T

1
2
2

ap  an
Z p
p2
K p qp  K n qn

Higher performance requires materials with high dierence in as, low thermal conductivity K, and high electrical
conductivity (or low q). However, this is intrinsically contradictory. Thermoelectric modules, based on commercially available materials that have a ZT [T is the average
of TH and TC] of about 1, cannot compete in eciency with
traditional vapor compression systems (Yang et al., 2008)
when operating at a relatively large temperature lift
(TH  TC), e.g., 30 C (54 F). However, the eciency of

89

thermoelectric modules increases rapidly with decreasing

temperature lift, where it may have some advantage over
traditional vapor compression systems.
A ZT with a value of 9 and above is required to produce
energy ecient cooling units. At an absolute temperature
of 300 K (27 C or 80 F), ZT = 1 would correspond to a
disappointing gure of merit Z = 0.0033. The best ZT
materials are found in heavily doped semi-conductors.
BiTe3 (p-type)/Sb2Te3 (n-type) super lattices are reported
to have ZT of 2.5 around room temperature. A signicant ZT increase has been reported in bulk materials made
from nano crystalline powders of p-type BiSbTe, with a ZT
peak of 1.4 at 100 C (212 F) (Yang et al., 2008). Signicant advancements are taking place in the development
of thermoelectric nano composites, resulting in higher ZT
values (Lan et al., 2010).
Although ZT of thermoelectric modules has increased
signicantly in recent years, their practical applications
are still limited. To date, reported thermoelectric system
eciency could not compete with conventional vapor compression technology. Fig. 3 depicts the theoretical COP of
dierent thermoelectric materials as well as the Carnot
COP and the COP for a conventional vapor compression
system using R134a as a working uid. All thermoelectric
materials are less ecient than vapor compression system
except for the single molecule devices (Finch et al., 2009;
Alexandrov and Bratkovsky, 2010). Fig. 3 shows that the
eciency of a thermoelectric device exceeds the eciency
of the vapor compression only when the temperature lift
is less than 5 C (9 F).
Vian and Astrain (2009) built a thermoelectric domestic
refrigerator with a single food compartment (of 0.225 m3)

Fig. 3. COP of thermoelectric modules for dierent materials at TH = 300 K compared to Carnot and vapor compression system (using R134a) COPs.

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P. Bansal et al. / International Journal of Sustainable Built Environment 1 (2012) 85101

Fig. 4. Advantage of thermionic phenomenon.

maintained at 5 C (41 F). A COP of 0.45 was demonstrated at a temperature lift of 19 C (34.2 F). Such performance is much below that of conventional vapor
compression technology. However, in order to achieve better COP, Yang et al. (2008) proposed a hybrid system by
using a low temperature lift thermoelectric subcooler to
increase the subcooling temperature in a vapor compression
system. This capitalizes on the fact that the thermoelectric
COP is higher for small temperature lifts such as 5 C
(9 F). Other niche applications for thermoelectric refrigeration include mobile coolers that are quiet and vibration
free. They are also widely used as replacements for wine
cabinets, mini-refrigerators, and water coolers (Navigant
Consulting Inc., 2009; Bansal and Martin, 2000).
Despite numerous advantages of thermoelectric refrigeration, low gure of merit hinders its wide scale deployment.
An order of magnitude increase in the gure of merit is
required for thermoelectric refrigeration to compete with
the energy eciency of the state-of-the-art vapor compression technologies. Molecular thermoelectric devices
have great potential energy eciency; however these cannot be produced economically at large scale with current
fabrication technologies. Furthermore, current fabrication
and assembly technologies result in a high thermal contact
resistance that causes the temperature lift to increase,
thereby dramatically reducing the energy eciency. Eorts
are needed to integrate thermoelectric devices with heat
exchangers to eliminate the contact resistance. It is unlikely
for thermoelectric refrigeration to compete with vapor
compression technology for household applications in the
foreseeable future.

retically, under an applied electrical potential, hot electrons

emitted by the cathode are at a higher energy level than
those that are left behind, which reduces the average energy
level (temperature) of the cathode. Since the electrons being
absorbed on the other side of the gap are at a higher energy
level than those in the electrode, the average energy level is
increased, and the electrode (i.e. anode) is heated. The new
type of materials called electrides that require only small
amount of energy to emit electrons at lower temperatures,
make this technology attractive. The major advantage of
thermionic over thermoelectric refrigeration is the elimination of the conduction heat transfer mode as shown in Fig. 4.
A number of studies have been carried out on thermotunneling (e.g. Dillner, 2008, 2010; ODwyer et al., 2009;
Weaver et al., 2007; Shakouri, 2006; Hishinuma et al.,
2001; Ulrich et al., 2001; Kenny et al., 1996; Mahan,
1994). ODwyer et al. (2009) suggested that the most promising way to develop room temperature vacuum thermionic
refrigerators is to combine new low work function emitter
materials with the nanometer gap techniques. Dillner
(2010) calculated an upper limit for the dimensionless thermoelectric gure of merit attainable by thermotunneling as
p2/12, which suggests that thermotunneling cannot outperform the state-of-the-art thermoelectric materials.
It is unlikely for thermotunneling to be an energy saving
technology for household applications in the near future.
Considerable R&D would be required including the development of cost eective low work function surfaces, with
typically less than 0.3 eV (ODwyer et al., 2006). In addition, the requirement for extremely small inter-electrode
spacing (nanometer-sized gaps) presents a unique challenge
for large-scale manufacturing.

4. Thermotunneling (thermionic) refrigeration

5. Magnetic refrigeration
There is a ne distinction between thermoelectric and
thermionic cooling, where the former uses a ow of electrons through a pair of semiconductors in close physical
contact, while the latter uses the ow of electrons between
two electrodes (i.e. cathode and anode) that are separated
by an extremely small gap (of the order of microns). Theo-

Magnetic refrigeration at room temperature is an emerging technology that exploits the magnetocaloric eect
(MCE) found in solid-state refrigerants. These refrigerants
are environmentally friendly since they have zero ozone
depletion potential and zero global warming potential

P. Bansal et al. / International Journal of Sustainable Built Environment 1 (2012) 85101

91

Fig. 5. Thermomagnetic cycle showing entropy-temperature diagram for Gd (Gd properties based on data from Jelinek et al., 1966 and Benford and
Brown, 1981).

(Dettmer, 2006. The temperature or point, at which a ferromagnetic material loses its permanent magnetism and
becomes paramagnetic, and exhibits its greatest MCE, is
called the Curie temperature or Curie point. The MCE
eect varies for dierent materials and can be intensied
by increasing the magnetic eld. MCE eect causes certain
materials to warm adiabatically upon application of a magnetic eld and cool when the eld is removed, and is coupled to an external heat transfer uid to accomplish the
heat pumping eect. The MCE behavior depends on the
type of material: ferromagnetic with magnetic domains
below the Curie point, or paramagnetic without magnetic
domains. Fig. 5 depicts a theoretical magnetocaloric refrigeration cycle using Gadolinium with a magnetic eld of 7
Tesla (T). In the magnetic refrigeration cycle, randomly
oriented magnetic spins in a paramagnetic material can
be aligned via a magnetic eld, resulting in an adiabatic rise
in temperature and decrease in entropy. This phenomenon
can be used in heat pumping applications to reject heat at
higher temperatures (Hull and Uherka, 1989). This process
is highly reversible since, upon removal of the magnetic
eld, the magnetic spins return to their randomized state,
resulting in an adiabatic decrease in temperature but
increase in entropy. The processes involved in magnetocaloric refrigeration are summarized below:
 (AB) Randomly oriented magnetic spins align after
applying a magnetic eld (H) along an isentropic process
increasing the magnetocaloric material temperature by
DTadiabatic, AB.
 (BC) Excess heat is rejected to ambient maintaining
constant magnetic eld H.
 (CD) When the magnetic eld is turned o, the spin
moments re-randomize and the temperature is reduced
by DTadiabatic, CD following an isentropic process.
 (DA) The magnetocaloric material absorbs heat from
the refrigerated volume. This raises its temperature
and the cycle continues.

The magnetic refrigeration technology, using active

magnetic regenerator (AMR) cycle, is claimed to have the
potential of higher energy eciency than the current vapor
compression technology (Russek and Zimm, 2006), however, no competitive system is commercially available todate for room temperature applications. An AMR cycle
uses magnetic material (or refrigerant) both as a thermal
storage medium as well as a means to convert magnetic
work to net heat transfer. The solid material is cycled
through a low and high magnetic eld, while exchanging
energy with a heat transfer uid (e.g. glycol water) oscillating through the void space of the AMR. An eective regenerator has high surface area per unit volume, high
conductivity and low pressure drop. A prototype rotary
magnetic refrigerator built by Astronautics Corporation
of America Inc., Milwaukee, USA is shown in Fig. 6.
There has been a vigorous research activity related to
this technology in the last decade where an exponential
increase in publications has been seen; exceeding 250 in
2007 (Gschneidner and Pecharsky, 2008). As a result, a
number of prototypes have emerged (Hiraro et al., 2010;
Muller et al., 2010; Zimm et al., 1998, 2006, 2007; Pecharsky and Gschneidner, 2006; Hirano, 2003; Zimm, 2003).
Subsequently, new designs for magnetic refrigeration components and systems have evolved that use compact devices
and water-based heat transfer uids. Yu et al. (2010)
reviewed near room temperature magnetic refrigeration
prototypes showing 41 working prototypes, 11 of which
were demonstrated in 2009. Yu et al. (2010) reviewed near
room temperature magnetic refrigeration prototypes and
patents and noted that there were 41 prototypes and almost
135 patents were issued during 19972009. At Thermag
conference in Grenoble during September 1720, 2012, 29
prototypes were presented in varying sizes from a few
Watts to 2 kW that employed rare earth alloys such as
LaFeCoSi, LaFeMnSiH, LaFeSiH, MnFePas and
MnFePGe (Bruck et al., 2012). The recent invigoration in
patents applications and prototypes of magnetic refrigeration

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Fig. 6. Rotary magnetic refrigerator from Astronautics Corporation of America Inc., Milwaukee, Wisconsin (after Zimm, 2003 and Navigant Consulting
Inc., 2009).

depicts advancing nature of this technology and the underlying demand. The research theme in recent studies is
focused on developing better magnetocaloric materials,
cycles, magnets and working prototypes, as highlighted in
some of the exemplary references (Bruck et al., 2012; Bahl
et al., 2010; Bjork et al., 2010; Russek et al., 2010; Kim
et al., 2007; Phan and Yu, 2007; Allab et al., 2006; Basso
et al., 2006; Bingfeng et al., 2006; Gao et al., 2006; Tagliaco
et al., 2006; Zimm et al., 2006). Smaller temperature
dierences are more feasible for magnetic refrigeration
technology due to the limited temperature dierence of
magnetocaloric materials, while cascade systems are more
desirable for higher temperature dierences (Kitanovski
and Egolf, 2009). A layered regenerator bed from several
magnetic refrigeration materials (Rowe and Tura, 2006)
that have Curie temperatures tailored to the local
regenerator temperature in active magnetic regenerative
refrigeration (AMRR) can result in maximizing the MCE
(Engelbrecht et al., 2006, 2007).
Room temperature applications require materials with a
Curie temperature around 22 C (71.6 F). Gadolinium
and Gadolinium alloys exhibit large MCE around this temperature. They are, therefore, among the most widely used
materials for room temperature refrigeration and space
cooling applications. These materials undergo secondorder phase transitions and do not exhibit magnetic or
thermal hysteresis, the physics of which is discussed by
Basso et al. (2006). By using such materials and applying
a 2 T magnetic eld, researchers have demonstrated temperature lifts of 5 C (9 F). Higher magnetic elds result
in larger temperature lifts, but at higher cost and lower
eciency. Most prototypes rely on the use of the active
magnetic regenerative cycle to provide high temperature
lift for air-conditioning and refrigeration applications.
Recent research on materials that exhibit a large entropy
change, such as Gd5(SixGe1  x)4, La(FexSi1  x)13Hx and
MnFeP1  xAsx alloys, provide acceptable performance
for near room temperature applications. These materials
are called giant magnetocaloric eect materials (Pecharsky
and Gschneidner, 2006).

Japan has launched a national project of developing a

room temperature magnetic refrigerator with a COP
exceeding 10 by using new materials and other innovations
(Hiraro et al., 2010). The group fabricated a sample of
Mn1 + dAs1  xSbx that has a magneto-caloric eect several
times higher than Gd, while developing another magnetic
material, Pr2Fe17 that has the same relative cooling power
as that of Gd at 10% of the cost.
A record COP of 4.6 was claimed to have been achieved
by the Cooltech magnetic refrigeration prototype [Muller
et al., 2010]. The prototype measures 230  300 
250 mm3, weighs 34 kg, and uses 0.6 mm thick and
100 mm long magnetocaloric material strips. The device
achieved minimum and maximum temperatures of 17 C
(1.4 F) and +45 C (113 F) respectively. The system
employs a permanent magnet with 1.6 T magnetic elds.
The prototype achieved a 110 W cooling capacity between
13 C (55.4 F) and 43 C (109.4 F) (DT of 30 K).
Despite all the above advancements, there is still no
experimental data available in the open literature to compare magnetic refrigeration with vapor compression refrigeration technology. Various studies, including Kitanovski
and Egolf (2010), have outlined major challenges facing
the magnetocaloric technology, which include scarcity of
magnetocaloric materials, high cost of materials and magnets, limitations of physical properties of materials, and
time delay required to reach the required temperature lift.
Although signicant developments (Jung et al., 2012;
Rowe, 2011; Tura and Rowe, 2011; Arnold et al., 2011)
have occurred lately in the AMR devices, magnetic devices
are still not able to compete with vapor compression systems. Some of the recent research eorts are devoted to
synthesizing and characterizing properties of MCEs, and
modeling and testing of AMRs including designing, building and testing of prototypes.
6. Stirling cycle refrigeration
An ideal Stirling cooler is a reversed Stirling engine. It
consists of a closed-cycle regenerative heat engine with a

P. Bansal et al. / International Journal of Sustainable Built Environment 1 (2012) 85101

93

Fig. 7. Schematics of the working principle of Stirling cycle.

Fig. 8. Picture and schematics of a prototype Stirling refrigerator (after Otaka et al., 2002).

gaseous working uid (generally He or H2). The cycle consists of two isothermal reversible processes and two constant volume reversible processes, as shown in Fig. 7.
Like the Brayton cycle, the working uid is moved between
the hot and cold spaces through a regenerator by a system
of displacers. The power piston is driven by an electric
motor for a refrigeration device. Large ow rates are
required to produce large capacities. Although Stirling
cycle cryocoolers are commercially available for infrared
sensors and high temperature superconducting devices,
their application at room temperature is practically nonexistent due to a relatively low COP and high rst cost.
Otaka et al. (2002) designed, simulated, and tested a displacer-type or b-type Stirling cycle prototype refrigerator

with a 100 W capacity, as shown in Fig. 8, to operate

between 40 C (40 F) and 30 C (86 F) at an operating
frequency of 16.7 Hz and a sealing pressure within the
refrigerator of less than 1.0 MPa. At a cooling temperature
of 20 C (4 F), radiator temperature of 30 C (86 F),
and mean pressure of 0.4 MPa, the cooling capacity of
the refrigerator increased by 20% when hydrogen was used
as a working uid instead of helium.
A free piston Stirling cooler prototype with a closed
thermosyphon system and R134a refrigerant was integrated into a domestic refrigerator by Oguz and Ozkadi
(2002). The prototype was tested at dierent refrigerant
charges and voltage inputs to the cooler. It was found to
consume approximately 30.5 W to maintain a cabinet

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P. Bansal et al. / International Journal of Sustainable Built Environment 1 (2012) 85101

Fig. 9. Schematics of a pulse tube refrigerator.

temperature of 5 C (41 F) at 25 C (77 F) ambient temperature. Luo et al. (2006) tested a thermoacoustic-Stirling
heat engine driven refrigerator, which achieved a no-load
temperature of 65 C (85 F) with a cooling capacity
of 270 W at 20 C (4 F) and 405 W at 0 C (32 F).
These results were quite encouraging for the application
of thermoacoustic-Stirling refrigerator for food refrigeration and air-conditioning. Recently, Sun et al. (2009) tested
a V-type Stirling cycle for domestic refrigeration with He
and N2 as the working uids and a cold end temperature
of 35 C (31 F). Using He, cooling capacities up to
70 W were achieved with a COP of 0.8.
Stirling cycle refrigeration may provide incremental
energy savings in domestic applications. However, for
Stirling cycle refrigeration to compete with vapor compression technologies, regenerator performance needs to
improve substantially to achieve higher eectiveness, lower
pressure drop, lower void volume and lower cost. Furthermore, cold and hot heat exchangers need to be designed
with a higher heat transfer density and lower log mean
temperature dierences.
7. Pulse tube refrigerator (PTR)
The pulse tube refrigerator (PTR) or pulse tube cryocooler is a developing technology that pumps heat through
the compression and expansion of a gas. It oers several
advantages over Stirling refrigerators, including no displacer and no mechanical vibrations. It can be made without
any moving parts in the low temperature section of the
device. The gas in-phase motion is achieved by the use of
an orice and a reservoir volume to store gas (Radebaugh,
2000). A PTR, as shown in Fig. 9, consists of eight main
components (i) a compressor that compresses the gas,
typically He, to higher temperatures, (ii) a heat exchanger
(HXH1) that rejects heat at room temperature cooling the
gas, (iii) a porous regenerator (to absorb and discharge
heat, from and to the gas, when it ows to the right and
to the left respectively), (iv) another heat exchanger
(HXL) absorbing the useful cooling power (QL) at low temperature TL, (v) a tube in which gas moves back and forth,
(vi) a hot end heat exchanger (HXH2) rejecting heat to
room temperature, (vii) an orice as a ow resistance
device, and (viii) a large buer volume containing He gas.

The PTR works on following four adiabatic compression

and expansion processes in the pulse tube (de Waele, 2000):
(i) Gas is compressed to high temperature,
(ii) Gas at high temperature and pressure ows through
the orice to the reservoir, and rejects heat to the
ambient through a heat exchanger (at room temperature TH),
(iii) The piston moves up and expands the gas adiabatically in the pulse tube,
(iv) This cold gas at low pressure in the pulse tube travels
back through the cold heat exchanger at the low temperature TL (providing cooling capacity QL).
The ow in either direction stops when the pressure in
the tube is either lower (when moving forward) or higher
(when moving backwards) than the average pressure in
the tube. The PTR has a regenerator (made of a porous
matrix) that precools the incoming high pressure gas before
it reaches the cold end (and vice-versa) and a hot-end heat
exchanger that rejects heat to room temperature.
PTRs are commercially available for temperature applications between 196 C (320.8 F) down to 269 C
(466.7 F), where their relative Carnot eciency is steadily improving (Swift, 1997; Hu et al., 2010)]. However,
the COP of PTR at room temperature is quite low and is
unlikely to play a role in domestic refrigeration.
8. Malone refrigeration
Malone refrigeration, invented in 1931 (Malone, 1931),
uses a liquid without evaporation as the working uid near
its critical point, instead of the customary gas, in a regenerative or recuperative refrigeration cycle such as Stirling
or Brayton cycles. Due to the inherent incompressible nature of liquid, this cycle has the advantage over gas cycle for
achieving higher pressure change per unit volume (Malone,
1931). The machine can be driven externally to produce a
refrigerating eect. In a refrigeration system, the Malone
cycle uses the cooling associated with the expansion of a
liquid, but without a phase change. One of the earliest
papers studying the physics of the liquids working in heat
engines was published in 1980 (Allen et al., 1980). Most
of the preliminary research was conducted at the Los

P. Bansal et al. / International Journal of Sustainable Built Environment 1 (2012) 85101

Alamos National Laboratory (USA) in the early 1990s

(Swift, 1989, 1993; Swift and Brown, 1994), where one of
the rst Malone refrigerators (Swift, 1989) used liquid propylene (C3H6) in a double acting 4 cylinder Stirling conguration, followed by liquid CO2 (Swift and Brown, 1994).
Although CO2 being an environmentally friendly refrigerant could make a good candidate for the Malone cycle,
its critical temperature (31 C, 88 F) is too low for ecient
operation in many HVAC/R applications. Other possible
candidate uids include methyl alcohol, ethyl alcohol, acetone or sulfur dioxide, which have higher critical temperatures, but present safety issues. Other uids include sulfur
hexauoride and various uorocarbons such as HFC134a. In general, these compounds have critical temperatures more suited to HVAC applications and critical pressures lower than CO2. Although high heat capacity liquids
oer the advantage of reduced mass ow rate for good heat
transfer, the main drawback of Malone refrigeration is that
these liquids are unable to achieve the desired (or required)
temperature change for ecient refrigeration. There has
been practically no activity in the recent past on Malone
refrigeration and it is unlikely for this technology to penetrate in the household applications in the near future.
9. Absorption refrigeration
Absorption and adsorption refrigeration are thermally
driven technologies that respectively use liquid and solid
sorbents. These systems are popular in applications where
demand side management is important and/or waste heat
is readily available. An absorption cycle, shown in
Fig. 10, utilizes a binary mixture of refrigerants such as
ammoniawater or waterLiBr. The single eect cycle consists of an absorber, a generator or desorber, a condenser,
an evaporator, and an electric solution pump, with the possibility of additional components, such as internal heat
exchangers, to enhance eciency. An external heat source,
such as a gas burner in a direct red system, steam or hot
water in an indirect red system, or waste heat, is used in
the generator (or desorber). Heat absorbed in the generator
allows the refrigerant to desorb from the absorbent, creating a high pressure vapor. In cases where a volatile absorbent is used (e.g. ammoniawater), a rectier is needed to
reduce the concentration of the volatile absorbent (e.g.
water) in the vapor to the condenser. A number of
advanced cycles have been proposed in the literature in
order to improve the COP starting from single eect to
GAX (Altenkirch and Tenckho, 1911), double-eect (Vliet et al., 1982), cycle with two absorbers (CMostozadeh
and Kulick, 1998), compression-absorption (Hulten and
Berntsson, 1999), auto cascade (Chen, 2002), two stage
absorption (Fan et al., 2007) and more recently an expander-compressor cycle (Hong et al., 2010) and several waste
heat/renewable energy operated absorption systems (Wang
et al., 2012). Single- and double-eect absorption chillers
are commercially available for large scale applications,
while absorption refrigerators are available for small

95

capacity applications, such as mini-bar fridges, recreational

vehicles, hotel rooms, and boats. Some of the advantages
of small refrigerators include quiet operation and exible
use of any energy source such as gas, battery and electricity
(Bansal and Martin, 2000). Although absorption coolers
oer many advantages over vapor compression systems
(e.g. environmentally friendly absorbent/refrigerant pairs,
fewer moving parts), they are mainly limited to large scale
applications and are not competitive for small scale applications due to system complexity, high cost and lower eciency compared to vapor compression systems.
10. Adsorption refrigeration
An adsorption system uses multiple beds of adsorbents
such as silica-gel in a silica-gel water system, to provide
continuous capacity, and does not use any mechanical
energy but only thermal energy. An adsorption refrigeration system usually consists of four main components: a
solid adsorbent bed, a condenser, an expansion valve and
an evaporator. The solid adsorbent bed is linked to the
evaporator. It desorbs refrigerant when heated and adsorbs
refrigerant vapor when cooled such that the bed works like
a thermal compressor to drive the refrigerant around the
system to heat or cool a heat transfer uid or to provide
space heating or cooling. When the bed becomes saturated
with refrigerant, it is isolated from the evaporator and connected to the condenser. The refrigerant vapor is condensed to a liquid, followed by expansion to a lower
pressure in the evaporator where the low pressure refrigerant is vaporized producing the refrigeration eect (i.e. cooling the refrigerator air). When further heating no longer
produces desorbed refrigerant from the adsorbent bed,
the refrigerant vapor from the evaporator is reintroduced
to the bed to complete the cycle. To obtain a continuous
and stable cooling eect, generally two (or multiple) adsorbent beds are used, where one bed is heated during desorption while the other bed is cooled during adsorption. In
order to achieve high eciency, heat of adsorption needs
to be recovered to provide part of the heat needed to regenerate the adsorbent. A recent literature review of conventional adsorption cycle was presented by Wang et al.
(2010).
Adsorptive beds of the chillers can be regenerated by
low-grade temperatures using waste heat or solar energy
as heat source. These chillers can also be employed in
CCHP systems. The overall thermal and electrical eciency in these systems can be above 70% (Wang et al.,
2005). Some of the recent adsorption system performance
enhancement technologies include heat pipes (Yang et al.,
2006) and consolidated compound adsorbents (TamainotTelto and Critoph, 2003). Lu et al. (2006) designed a prototype icemaker with specic cooling power of 770 Wkg1
and a COP of 0.39, at 20 C evaporation temperature.
Adsorption systems are known to suer from low coefcient of performance (COP) and low specic cooling
power (Wang et al., 2010; Wang and Oliveira, 2006).

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P. Bansal et al. / International Journal of Sustainable Built Environment 1 (2012) 85101

working uid, which is ammable and hence not suitable

for domestic applications. Other challenges for using CDMHHP in domestic applications include high cost of metal
hydrides, non-availability of suitable materials with fast
reaction kinetics, and the need for improved hydrogen
compressor technology.
12. Developments in water heating and space conditioining
12.1. Heat pump water heater (HPWH) using transcritical
CO2
Fig. 10. Schematics of single-eect absorption cycle.

Although commercial adsorption systems for air-conditioning applications between 35 and 350 kW (Tassou
et al., 2010: Mayekawa, 2012) are reported to be available,
household scale systems are not yet commercially available.
Wang et al. (2010) concluded that there is still a strong
research need for advanced refrigerant/adsorbent pairs,
advanced cycles and design to overcome the system transient eects. Their review acknowledged the lower system
eciency and lower specic capacity compared to absorption and vapor compression refrigeration systems. It is
unlikely for adsorption refrigeration to be considered as a
replacement for vapor compression refrigeration system
in the near future.
11. Compressor-driven metal hydride heat pump
Compressor driven metal hydride heat pumps (CDMHHP) are based on a modied adsorption heat pump
system and use environmentally friendly refrigerants. The
main dierence is that the adsorption/desorption process
is controlled via a low speed refrigerant compressor. The
compressor imposes a pressure drop causing the refrigerant
(hydrogen in this case) to desorb from the charged metal
hydride bed and to be adsorbed in a second discharged
reactor. The refrigerant is desorbed from the adsorbent
(e.g. lanthanum pentanickle, LaNi5) at low pressure and
temperature on the suction side and adsorbed by the LaNi5
on the high pressure side. The refrigerant ow direction
and cycling can be controlled via three or four-way valves.
Park et al. (2001) demonstrated the practical applicability of Zr0.9Ti0.1Cr0.55Fe1.45 hydride for air-conditioning systems by using an oil free compressor between 1 and 18 atm,
and achieved a specic cooling power of 410 Wkg1 of alloy
with a COP of 1.8. A schematic of this system is shown in
Fig. 11, where Magnetto et al. (2006) reported a COP above
2.5 at ambient conditions between 21 C (69.8 F) and
35 C (95 F).
Muthukumar and Groll (2010) concluded in their comprehensive review that compressor-driven metal hydride
systems can compete with vapor compression technology;
however, the major bottlenecks include the development
of a low capacity hydrogen compressor and high cost of
hydride alloys. CD-MHHP mainly uses hydrogen as the

The use of a vapor compression heat pump in water

heating applications dates back to the early work of Wilkes
and Reed (1937). Heat pump water heater technologies did
not receive the required attention until the 1973 oil
embargo (Dunning et al., 1978a,b). While US research
focused on developing uorinated carbon refrigerant based
vapor compression HPWHs since early 2000, the Japanese
researchers focused more on the development of a natural
refrigerant HPWH (Hepbasli and Kalinci, 2009). Carbon
dioxide proved to be among the top performing uids
due to several reasons, including its large temperature glide
in transcritical cycle.
State of the art Japanese HPWHs depend on the transcritical CO2 vapor compression cycle. Several types of compressors can be used, including scroll compressor
(Hashimoto, 2006), single rotary compressor with brushless
DC motor (Maeyama and Takahashi, 2007), or two-stage
rotary compressor (Sanyo, 2010). In water heater applications, transcritical CO2 exiting the compressor ows in a
gas cooler submerged inside the water heater storage unit,
where water is heated up to 90 C. An ejector or an expansion valve reduces the refrigerant pressure and temperature. It then ows back to the evaporator, completing the
circuit. The CO2 HPWH is generally more expensive than
conventional technology; however, according to (Kawashima, 2005) they oer 30% reduction in primary energy consumption and 50% reduction in CO2 emission compared
with conventional combustion type boilers. The overall
heat pump market is expected to grow by 8.1% in Japan
(IIR, 2010).
CO2 HPWHs are appealing in Japan, particularly when
the COPs range between 3 and 4.9 (as compared with eciencies for electric water heating at 1.0 and gas heating at
0.8 including pilot light losses). In order to achieve higher
overall energy eciencies and to expand the use in households, a multi-functional CO2 HPWH is being developed
(KEPC, 2012) that combines a oor heater and bathroom
heater/dryer. In addition, compact CO2 HPWH units that
can be used on small lots in urban areas and in multihousehold dwellings are also being developed.
12.2. Integrated heat pump systems (IHPS)
Low-energy and passive houses are designed with high
levels of insulation and air-tightness, resulting in low space

P. Bansal et al. / International Journal of Sustainable Built Environment 1 (2012) 85101

97

Fig. 11. Compressor driven heat pump operation (after Magnetto et al., 2006).

conditioning requirements. Domestic hot water (DHW)

demand typically constitutes 5085% of the total annual
heating demand in Scandinavian residence (Stene, 2007),
and up to 21% in US homes (Tomlinson et al., 2005). An
integrated heat pump system (IHPS) for combined space
heating and hot water heating can ideally meet both these
requirements (Baxter et al., 2005) with reduced overall cost
and better eciency. IHPS can be designed to utilize
dierent heat sources, such as bedrock, ground, exhaust ventilation air, ambient air, or a combination of exhaust ventilation air and ambient air. Although an IHPS will be
instrumental in the promotion of the zero energy building
concept, it faces the challenge of delivering ecient space
heating and cooling, ecient water heating, and space dehumidication, particularly at times when latent heat loads are
large.
A conceptual design of IHPS, shown in Fig. 12, integrates space heating and cooling, water heating, ventilation,
and humidity control (humidication and dehumidication) functions into a single unit. This concept consists of
a modulating compressor, two variable-speed (VS) fans,
and heat exchangers, including two air-to-refrigerant, one
water-to-refrigerant, and one air-to-water to meet all the
HVAC and water heating loads. The air-to-water HX uses
excess hot water generated during the cooling and dehumidication modes to temper the ventilation air, as needed, to
provide space-neutral conditions. The outdoor unit air
source heat exchanger could be replaced by a ground source
heat exchanger that would result in higher energy eciency,
but at a higher initial cost. Simulation results for IHPS indicate an approximate 50% reduction in energy use for space
heating & cooling, water heating, dehumidication, and
ventilation, compared to that of the base system (Rice
et al., 2008). Research eorts are currently devoted to building and testing a ground source integrated heat pump
(GSIHP) prototype at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory
(USA) to convert this concept into a reality. Their GSIHP
system was predicting to use up to 61% less energy than
the baseline system while meeting total annual space conditioning and water heating loads (Rice et al., 2013).
IHPS with CO2 as a working uid can achieve a high
COP due to the unique characteristics of the transcritical

Fig. 12. Conceptual design of an integrated heat pump system (after

Tomlinson et al., 2005).

cycle with heat rejection in a gas cooler at a gliding CO2

temperature. A counter-ow CO2 gas cooler in combination with an external single-shell hot water tank and a
low temperature heat distribution system, as shown in
Fig. 13, can deliver domestic hot water in the required temperature range from 60 to 85 C with a COP up to 20% better than the baseline system (Stene, 2007).
13. Overall assessment of NIK technologies
It is clear that there is a growing interest in not-in-kind
technologies for household applications in a quest for sustainable energy development. However, it is almost impossible to rank these technologies due to insucient
information being available in the open literature on their
performance, size, reliability and cost compared to current
vapor compression technologies. Thermoacoustic, Stirling,
absorption and compressor driven metal hydride heat
pumps are developing technologies, and may be classied
in the medium and long term range of developments, while
thermotunneling, Malone and adsorption refrigeration lie
in the long term development range. The two emerging

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P. Bansal et al. / International Journal of Sustainable Built Environment 1 (2012) 85101

Fig. 13. Schematics of an integrated CO2 heat pump water heating system.

technologies that show promise are thermoelectric and

magnetic refrigeration, where the latter is ahead due to
the amount of international interest, research and development activity. The eciency improvement for these two
technologies is highly dependent on signicant breakthroughs in materials development. These technologies will
have to compete with conventional vapor compression at
higher levels of eciency. However, recent developments

in the area of linear compressors (F&P, 2010) will make

it increasingly dicult for emerging technologies to displace evolving vapor compression technologies.
Due to the varying sizes, varying operating conditions
and varying methods for calculating performance of a specic system, comparing these systems quantitatively with
each other and making recommendations is neither accurate
nor can be justied. However, based on our review and

Table 1
Qualitative comparison of not-in-kind refrigeration technologies for household applications.
Technology

Potential for energy eciency

R&D status

Technical risks (low,

med, high)

Time to
commercialize (years)

Thermoacoustic
Thermoelectric

Poor
Promising

High
Medium

Long term
Medium term

Thermotunneling
Magnetic
Stirling cycle
Pulse-tube refrigeration
Malone cycle
refrigeration
Absorption

Poor
Promising
Poor
Poor
Theoretically good performance

Limited activity
Well established, on-going
material research
No recent activity
Strong activity
Manufacturing issues
Developed
No reported activities

High
Medium
Medium
Medium
High

Long
Long
Long
Long
Long

Well established

Medium

Short term

Adsorption
Compressor driven metal
hydride
Heat pump water heater
using CO2
Integrated heat pumps

term
term
term
term
term

None except when integrated with

renewable energy
None except for using renewable
energy integration
Poor

On-going

Medium

Medium term

No recent activities

Medium

Long term

High

Strong

Low

Short

High

Limited ongoing

Low

Short to medium

P. Bansal et al. / International Journal of Sustainable Built Environment 1 (2012) 85101

compiled data, a qualitative and/or subjective analysis of

these technologies is presented in Table 1, where short term,
medium term and long term are respectively dened as
within 5 years, less than 15 years and beyond 15 years.
14. Conclusions
A review of NIK refrigeration technologies has been
presented in this paper, where thermoelectric and magnetic
refrigeration technologies show promise for energy eciency improvements compared to vapor compression technology. However, these technologies are still developing
due to current limitations posed by the state-of-the-art in
materials research. A signicant amount of research has
recently been pursued in the area of magnetic refrigeration
where fast developments are occurring both in new materials and system architecture. It is envisioned that magnetic
refrigeration equipment may initially be costly, but the
future of the technology may be promising.
Technologies such as thermoacoustic refrigeration,
absorption, and adsorption refrigeration have lower energy
eciency compared to vapor compression refrigeration.
However, these have the advantage of exibility in energy
sources and can improve household energy eciency when
waste heat is available. Absorption is the most developed
NIK, adsorption is currently available for large air-conditioning capacities, and thermoacoustic refrigeration is still
developing. The thermotunneling refrigeration technology
has advantage over thermoelectric refrigeration; however,
materials and fabrication roadblocks limit its development.
In a nutshell, signicant breakthroughs are needed in materials research, fabrication technologies, and systems integration for both thermoelectric and magnetic refrigeration
technologies to compete with conventional vapor compression technology.
Substantial energy savings may be achieved through
implementing heat pump technologies for water heating.
Furthermore, domestic energy eciency can be greatly
improved through systems integration such as using an
integrated heat pump system serving both air-conditioning
and water heating loads.
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