i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f r e f r i g e r a t i o n 3 7 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 8 e1 5

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journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijrefrig

Review

From conventional to magnetic refrigerator

technology

Osmann Sari*, Mohamed Balli

Institute of Thermal Engineering, University of Applied Sciences of Western Switzerland, Avenue des Sports 20,
1400 Yverdon-les-Bains, Vaud, Switzerland

article info abstract

Article history: Ensure wellbeing for each of us is a first necessity for peace and development of society
Received 16 April 2013 while preserving the environmental balance of the blue planet. Today’s society is faced
Received in revised form with major challenges such as the supply of energy, water, food, etc. Refrigeration is an
15 September 2013 important factor in the modern world. It is vital before life (sperm banks), for life (con-
Accepted 16 September 2013 versation food, medicine, .), and after life (preservation of human organs and tissues).
Available online 26 October 2013 However the negative impact of refrigeration on the environment is visible and, conse-
quently, refrigeration systems are subject to prescriptive regulation. This regulation pro-
Keywords: vides a great opportunity for the emergence of new refrigeration technologies and new
Conventional refrigeration product markets. In recent years, magnetic refrigeration is considered as a serious alter-
Refrigerants native for conventional systems. Today proof of the concept is established. Therefore what
Magnetic refrigeration remains is to provide systems for the society.
Magnetocaloric material ª 2013 Elsevier Ltd and IIR. All rights reserved.
Magnetic field sources

Du froid conventionnel au froid magnétique

Mots clés : Froid conventionnel ; Frigorigènes ; Froid magnétique ; Sources de froid magnétique ; Matériau magnétocalorique

1. Introduction
The use of ice for prolonging the storage life of foodstuff dates
back many millenniums. Ice owes its effectiveness as a cool-
ing agent to its constant melting point of 0
C. In order to melt,
ice must absorb 333 kJ kg1. Up to the middle of the last cen-
tury all ice used for cooling was from natural sources. This ice
was taken from lakes in winter and then stored. In 1890, the
U.S. still exported 25 million tons of ice per year. Sometimes
the natural snow was mixed with salt in order to reach low
temperatures (from 1600). The production of ice cream is
known to be done according to this technology in ancient
Rome. However, the pollution of lakes, the competitiveness of
the new technology and no able to follow the increase of the
demand has caused end of this industry.
Refrigeration is the process of removing heat from an
enclosed volume or from a substance, to elsewhere for the

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: Osmann.sari@heig-vd.ch (O. Sari).
0140-7007/$ e see front matter ª 2013 Elsevier Ltd and IIR. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijrefrig.2013.09.027
 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f r e f r i g e r a t i o n 3 7 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 8 e1 5
Nomenclature
B Magnetic induction Tesla, T
COP Coefficient of performance -
h Specific enthalpy J kg1
MCE Magnetocaloric effect K
p Pressure bar
Q Energy transfer J
s Specific Entropy J (kg K)1
T Temperature K,
C
primary purpose of lowering the temperature of the enclosed
space or substance and then maintaining that lower temper-
ature (Lawrence, 2003). There are two processes of production
of the cold: the physical process of change of state with
compression then relaxation and physical-chemical process
(absorption system). In France, Ferdinand Carré developed a
the first cooling system with ammonia and water. The first
machine of refrigeration with compression was proposed by
Jacobs Perkins in 1834 which used ether as refrigerant. In 1913,
the first domestic refrigerator was built. In 1929, DuPont in-
vents CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons), marketed under the name
“Freon”. Dichlorodifluoromethane (CCl2F2) is odorless,
nonflammable and presents a low toxicity. In 1931, the first
industrial manufacturing was realized by Electrolux. The in-
dustry was driven by the development of electricity produc-
tion and the growth of the electric motors production.
The refrigeration industry achieved a major development
with the arrival of refrigerants like CFC-R12, HCFC-R22 (1935)
and CFC-R502 (1961), HFC R134 (1993), etc. The HFCs have no-
ozone depletion advantages over R22; however, they still have
some global warming potential impact (GWP). The required
characteristics for a refrigerant are: environmental accept-
ability, chemical stability, materials compatibility,
refrigeration-cycle performance, non-flammability and non-
toxicity, boiling point, etc.
Refrigeration is an important key in the modern world and
it is in a continuous to progress. In 2007, domestic refrigera-
tion accounts for over 27 million devices in France. In 2007, the
energy consumption of freezer refrigerators represents 21% of
total electricity consumption in France, i.e 18 billion kWh
consumed and an equivalent of 2.25 billion tons of CO2
(ADEME, 2007).
From 1973, the presence of CFCs in the atmosphere is re-
ported. Since then refrigeration occupies scientists and poli-
tics. The environmental protection is one more challenge to
overcome. Refrigeration techniques are the focus of two is-
sues. Firstly the destruction of the ozone layer (CFC, HCFC),
secondly the intensification of greenhouse gases (CFC, HCFC
and HFC). These two preoccupations have given rise to the
Montreal and Kyoto protocols.
These international regulations provide a great opportunity
for the emergence of new refrigeration technologies and new
products. Consequently, more efficient refrigerants and equip-
ments were developed in recent years. In addition, the impact of
synthetic refrigerants on the environment as well as the legal
safety obligations drive the refrigeration industry to seek for
new ways for completely phasing out greenhouse gases or for
decreasing their charge in miscellaneous installations.
9
W Work J
hexerg Exergetic efficiency e
Subscript
Aux Auxiliaries
C Curie
Cool Cold side
Heat Hot side
M magnetic
In 2006, the Mobile Air Conditioning Directives (MAC) was
adopted in the EU. The main objective of the directives con-
sists the use of greenhouse gases with a GWP less than 150.
The HFO-1234yf was proposed in order to replace HFC-134a as
a refrigerant in mobile air conditioning system.
In order to be free from synthetic refrigerants, industries
are continuously searching for environmentally friendly and
suitable new technologies that will enable high energy sav-
ings, therefore reducing indirect CO2 emissions.
During the last fifteen years both the load reduction of the
refrigerants in the installations and the use of natural,
nonflammable, environmentally friendly refrigerants have
been the preferred options by many end users such as Nestlé,
Unilever, Coca Cola, etc.
The research on the future technologies orients itself to-
ward the ice slurry refrigeration (indirect cooling technology),
vapor compressor technology (hydrocarbons, CO2, ammonia,
HFOs), thermal electric refrigeration, thermal acoustic refrig-
eration and magnetic refrigeration (MR).
Active magnetic refrigeration system is considered actually
as an attractive alternative for conventional vapor compres-
sion refrigeration systems. In the last decade two research
topics emerged in this domain. The first one is devoted to the
development of new materials with high performances (MCE,
DSm), and the second concerns the design and building effi-
cient magnetic cooling devices. From the 2000’s the discovery
of the high polarization permanent magnet in Nd-Fe-B and of
the giant MCE (Pecharsky and Gschneidner, 1997), several
demonstration units have been developed (Yu et al., 2010)
from, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Switzerland, USA, etc.
2. Conventional refrigeration
A system consists of several components combined together
in order to obtain a given result. The thermodynamic cycle is
defined by the succession of thermodynamic states. For a
machine working continuously it is necessary to assign to
each of the thermodynamic transformations the inverse
transformation. Cold production uses the endothermic phe-
nomenon: vaporization of a liquid (Fig.1). The thermodynamic
cycle used in the most common refrigerator is the gas-
compression/expansion method. The ideal thermodynamic
cycle of the refrigeration is shown in Figs. 1a and b. This
technology, existing since 1920s, has the advantage to be
mature, cheap and well controlled (compressor, refrigerant,
oil). However, its performance is still low. Since Montreal
protocol (1987) many works have been carried out in order to
10 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f r e f r i g e r a t i o n 3 7 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 8 e1 5

efficiency compressors, 50% of Carnot efficiency is obtained in

conventional refrigeration. The magnetic refrigeration shows
(Fig. 2) a higher efficiency than the compression/relaxation
systems. Most of the domestic refrigeration compressors work
at a fixed rotation speed (single speed compressors) and
discontinuously (Fig. 3). This running mode is inefficient due
to a frequent on-off process of the compressors. To increase
the energy performance of the system, an inverter compressor
is proposed (Siegrist and Stahl, 2010).

3. Magnetic cooling

Magnetic refrigeration techniques have been used firstly to

Fig. 1 e Thermodynamic cycle used for the conventional
system (compression-relaxation). Ideal (a, b) and real (c)
thermodynamic cycle a.
eliminate the ozone depletion effect (Table 1). With Kyoto
protocol (1997), energy efficiency has emerged as an important
parameter in refrigerators.
The maximum performance is given by the Carnot effi-
ciency. The coefficient of performance (COP) depends, among
other parameters, on the used refrigerant (Table 1) and the
losses caused by the mechanical parts, especially the
compressor (Fig. 1c, 2).
TCool
COPCarnot ¼
THeat  TCool
According to the first law of thermodynamics:
QCool
COP ¼ P  (2)
Wcompressor þ WAux
The thermodynamic irreversibility reduces the perfor-
mance of a refrigeration cycle. The exergetic efficiency can be
written to one:
COP
hexerg ¼
COPCarnot
Many investigations and developments on the compres-
sors were carried out and a technological limit was reached
with the conventional system. From 1983 to 2006 the size of
the compressor was reduced drastically and the energy effi-
ciency was increased by more than 40%. Today, with high
maintain very low temperatures. During recent years, the
magnetocaloric effect (MCE) principle has created an
increasing interest because of several advantages of magnetic
refrigeration as compared with classical gas compression-
relaxation cooling systems (Fig. 2), such as the ecological
benefit (no ozone depleting and direct greenhouse CFC or
HCFC gases) and the high energy efficiency.
The magnetocaloric effect is an intrinsic property of spe-
cific magnetic materials characterised by a temperature
change induced by a change in the strength of an external
magnetic field. Magnetic refrigeration requires the combina-
tion of a magnetic source of rather high strength and a ma-
terial with sufficiently high refrigerant capacity.
In the late 1990s, two major advances have occurred. The
first one was the discovery of the giant magnetocaloric effect
in compounds Gd5 (Ge1-xSix)4 (Pecharsky and Gschneidner,
(1)
1997). The second one concerns the development of a proto-
type demonstrating the feasibility of the magnetic refrigera-
tion in the room temperature (Zimm et al., 1998). These two
advances have revolutionized the magnetic refrigeration at
room temperature. Since then, as shown in Fig. 4, an impor-
tant research activity is conducted around the world for the
development of refrigeration systems and the implementa-
tion of new magnetocaloric materials. Recent developments
in systems and materials are summarized in (Gschneidner
and Pecharsky, 2008; Yu et al., 2010).
(3)
3.1. Magnetic field sources
The external magnetic field strength is a key parameter of the
magnetic cooling machine since the efficiency scales directly
with magnetic field. The magnetic field generates the entropy

Table 1 e A list of refrigerants used in conventional cooling systems.

Refrigerants Environmental Energy efficiency Economical comparaison Toxicity/inflammability

ODP GWP Volume capacity % e CHF/Kg ATEL toxicity LFL inflammability limite
(ref. CFC-R12) (ref. HCFC R22, 2012) limite

CFC-R12 1 10,890 100 0.018 0.00

HCFC-R22 0.05 1810 161 100 ??? 0.00
HFC-R134a 0 1430 96 60 0.25 0.00
HFO-R1234yf 0 4 106 70 0.101 0.107
Ammonia 0 0 160 10 0.00035 0.104
HC-R290 0 3 140 64 0.09 0.038
CO2-R744 0 1 840 26 0.036 0.00
 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f r e f r i g e r a t i o n 3 7 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 8 e1 5
Fig. 2 e COP as a function of temperature in the case of
conventional (R134a) and magnetic Refrigeration (MR)
systems (Kitanovski et al., 2008).
change in the magnetocaloric refrigerant. It is equivalent to
the compressor in conventional systems. The higher the
external field is, the higher is the entropy and adiabatic tem-
perature change of the functional materials.
In this way, superconducting magnets can be used to build
magnetic refrigerators with high level of magnetic field as
demonstrated by Zimm et al. (1998). However, as outlined by
Gschneidner and Pecharsky (2008) the superconducting
Fig. 3 e Domestic refrigerator working cycle around the
desired cold temperature.
11
magnets can be utilized for industrial application, i.e., super-
market chillers, refrigeration plants and building climate
control. On the other hand, the implementation of this kind of
magnetic sources in domestic refrigerators is out of question
since the superconducting magnets need liquid helium or a
cryocooler to maintain the superconducting coil efficient i.e.
around 4 K (Degregoroia, 1992).
For the commercialization of domestic and automotive
devices, the development of performant magnetic sources
based on permanent magnets (PM) is a crucial step. For this
purpose and encouraged by the discovery of the high polari-
zation permanent magnet in Nd-Fe-B, several recent works
have addressed this problem. Generally, the reported mag-
netic flux sources are based on non-colinear configuration of
permanent magnets, where a number of magnets are located
around a central volume in which the field is generated. A
simple configuration like a C-shaped yoke with PMs was
proposed by Tang et al. (2004), but the magnetic field in the air
gap was not sufficient for a conventional magnetic circuit.
Their design generated a magnetic field of about 0.82 Tesla in
15 mm gap. On other hand, Lee et al. (2002) have described a
new design of PMs field source for rotary magnetic refrigera-
tion system. Using Halbach structure and soft magnetic ma-
terials a field strengths greater than 3 Tesla can be generated.
Recent developments on magnetic field sources are summa-
rized in Bjork et al. (2010).
For our application, an innovative magnetic source was
developed in the University Of Applied Sciences Of Western
Switzerland (HESeSOeYverdon-les-Bains). For building this
source, Nd-Fe-B permanent magnets were arranged following
a special configuration. The structure of the magnetic source
is optimized by calculating magnetic field distribution of a
specific permanent magnetic source and comparing field
strengths for different structural parameters. For this study,
the finite element Flux 3D was used to determine the required
magnetic quantities. Based on Maxwell equations, this pro-
gram firstly calculates the magnetic potential as unknown
degree of freedom which allows the calculation of the mag-
netic field. Fig. 5 shows a general view and the magnetic field
distribution in the air gap of the source. As shown in Fig. 5, the
magnetic induction inside the magnetic source is homoge-
nous and about 1.45 Tesla Fig. 6.
3.2. Magnetocaloric materials
In practice, magnetic refrigeration requires the combination
of a relatively strong magnetic field and a material with a large
magnetocaloric effect. Nowadays, the magnetocaloric mate-
rials have become one of the critical parts for the development
of the magnetic cooling technology.
Actually, the gadolinium metal (Gd) is the mainly used
material in room temperature magnetic refrigerators. This is
attributed to the large magnitude of the isothermal entropy
and adiabatic temperature changes close to its ferromagnetic-
paramagnetic second order transition at TC ¼ 294 K. Under a
magnetic field change of 2 and 5 Tesla, the maximum entropy
variation in Gd is estimated to be about 5 and 9.8 J (kg K)1,
respectively. The corresponding adiabatic temperature
change is about 4.8 K for 2 Tesla and 10 K for 5 Tesla. Gd was
12 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f r e f r i g e r a t i o n 3 7 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 8 e1 5

Fig. 4 e A map for different groups working on the magnetocaloric refrigeration around the world (left), and the maximum
obtained temperature span (right).

firstly used by Brown (1976) in 1976 and then its magneto-
caloric and physical properties were widely studied.
The use of gadolinium as active material has various dis-
advantages. First, the price of Gd is very high (w4000 $/kg).
Second, Gd has a poor resistance to corrosion and oxidation in
water which affects its magnetocaloric properties and de-
creases the magnetic cooling machine performance. Finally,
the cooling range is limited close to the room temperature
where the magnetocaloric effect is very large (on account of
the 2nd order transition occurring at 294 K).
In 1997, the discovery of the giant magnetocaloric effect
(GMCE) in Gd5Ge2Si2 and its derivatives (Pecharsky and
Gschneidner, 1997) with a two times larger entropy variation
compared to Gd, has revolutionized the interest in the
research on new magnetocaloric materials and the develop-
ment of new magnetic cooling systems. At TC ¼ 276 K and for a
magnetic field variation from 0 to 5 Tesla, the magnetic en-
tropy change is about 18.5 J (kg K)1 (9.8 J (kg K)1 for Gd). This
large value results from the first order magneto-structural
transformation at the Curie point. Later, materials with a
first-order magnetic phase transition such as MnFeP1  xAsx
(Tegus et al., 2002), MnAs1  xSbx (Wada and Tanabe, 2001) and
LaFe13  xSix (Hu et al., 2002; Fujita et al., 2003; Balli et al., 2007)
have been reported and intensively investigated. Tegus et al.
(2002), have demonstrated that MnFeP0.45As0.55 exhibits a
large change of magnetic entropy at around 300 K with the
similar value with Gd5Ge2Si2. Further, it was shown by Wada
and Tanabe (2001) that MnAs possesses a giant magneto-
caloric effect close to 318 K. For a field variation from 0 to 2 T,
the resulting entropy change is about 30 J kg1 K1, six times
higher than gadolinium. In addition the substitution of 10% Sb
for As in MnAs compound reduces the thermal hysteresis and
lowers the Curie temperature to 280 K, while the giant MCE is
retained.
Although the cited materials present excellent magneto-
caloric properties, the costs of the constituent elements (Gd,
Ge) as well as the large amount of hysteresis due to the first
order character of the magnetic transition, remain serious
obstacles for their implementation. However, for some Mn-
based compounds, the presence of the toxic elements As
and/or P that have high vapor pressure which makes the
production of these materials an additional challenge and will

Fig. 5 e Magnetic field distribution inside the developed magnetic field source.
 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f r e f r i g e r a t i o n 3 7 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 8 e1 5
Fig. 6 e New magnetocaloric materials compared with Gd performance for 2 Tesla.
add additional costs in manufacturing the magnetic refrig-
erant. Instead, among all the reported magnetocaloric mate-
rials, LaFe13  xSix (Hu et al., 2002; Fujita et al., 2003; Balli et al.,
2007) has been shown to be the most promising alternative
due to their large magnetocaloric effect and low hysteresis. In
addition, the low cost of the elements comprising the com-
pounds (Fe) makes this family of materials very interesting.
It has been demonstrated that LaFe13  xSix exhibit a
thermally induced first order magnetic transition from the
ferromagnetic to the paramagnetic state at low temperatures
(at around 200 K). The field induced itinerant electron meta-
magnetism (IEM) transition occurs just above TC in the same
temperature range leading to GMCE. In addition, for practical
application it is necessary to shift the Curie point toward room
temperature while retaining large MCE. In this way, by
studying the effect of interstitial hydrogen on the LaFe13  xSix,
Fujita et al. (Fujita et al., 2003) found that the TC can be
adjusted between 190 and 330 K (room temperature included)
without compromising the large MCE. For example, the ob-
tained DSm under 2 Tesla is about 20 J (kg K)1 for La(Fe0.88-
Si0.12)13Hy which is four times higher compared to gadolinium
(w5 J (kg K)1 for 2 Tesla).
On the other hand, by increasing the hydrogen content (y),
the adiabatic temperature change has been enhanced by
about 50% when y ¼ 1.5 (TC ¼ 323 K) compared with y ¼ 0
(TC ¼ 195 K). Later, the hydrided compounds have been tested
in a magnetic refrigerator with encouraging results (Zimm
et al., 2007). However, the chemical as well as the mechani-
cal instability of hydrides remain a serious obstacle for a
commercial use. In order to avoid this inconvenience and as
underlined for example in Balli et al. (2007), La(Fe, Co)13  xSix
with a small amount of cobalt appears as the most attractive
alternative. Fig. 7 displays temperature dependences of the
normalized magnetocaloric effect. This latter is about 2 K T1
which is comparable with that of gadolinium (2.5 K T1).
3.3. Magnetic refrigerators
Over the last decade, a number of prototype magnetic cooling
devices operating with the active magnetic refrigeration
principle have been built. Among the different systems, the
third generation rotating magnet magnetic refrigeration,
developed by Zimm et al. (2007), has attracted much attention.
13
The rotary system is constituted of two 1.5 Tesla modified
Halbach magnets which rotate while the 12 magnetocaloric
beds remain fixed. The cooling machine reaches a maximum
temperature span of 11 K and produces a cooling power of
220 W. In this refrigerator, the two magnetic sources are ar-
ranged so that the moment of inertia of the magnet is mini-
mized and inertial forces are balanced. The heat transfer fluid
flow is driven by a continuously running pump and is
switched by four rotary valves to the appropriate beds as the
magnet rotates. Another interesting system is the prototype
built and presented by Tura and Rowe at the Thermag II
conference (Tura and Rowe, 2007). The rotary permanent
magnet refrigerator utilizes two pairs of concentric Halbach
arrays which are synchronized such that one magnetocaloric
bed is being demagnetized while the second one is being
magnetized. The generated magnetic induction of a 20 cm3
cylindrical volume is about 1.4 Tesla. The maximum obtained
temperature span is approximately 13 K. The system is
designed to operate at a frequency as high as 5 Hz. A detailed
review on the recent reported magnetic cooling systems can
be found in (Yu et al., 2010).
Among all the reported prototypes, the pre-industrial
magnetic cooling system developed more recently at the
HES-SO Yverdon-Les-Bains (Balli et al., 2010), is one of the
most innovative machine. Based on the permanent magnets
Fig. 7 e Normalized magnetocaloric effect of La(Fe,
Co)13 L xSix close to room temperature.
14 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f r e f r i g e r a t i o n 3 7 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 8 e1 5
Fig. 8 e A general view of the developed magnetic refrigerator (a), and a schematic picture of the implemented AMR cycle
with the new design of the regenerator (b).
array described above, the device was built taking into ac-
count the compactness, the market, and the thermodynamic
performance requirements. It is designed to produce a cooling
power of about 100 Watt with a temperature span larger than
20 K. Plates of gadolinium metal were first used as the mag-
netic refrigerant. This is mainly attributed to the ability of Gd
to answer the engineering requirements (ductile), its avail-
ability on the market, and its room temperature magneto-
caloric performance. However, other materials are actually
under test.
To increase the magnetic systems efficiency, many ef-
forts were made to reduce the magnetic forces in the ma-
chine. For this purpose, a new design in which the active
material is divided into two separated parts was proposed
(Fig. 8b). Therefore, when the first block is magnetized the
rest of the magnetocaloric refrigerant is simultaneously
demagnetized, leading then to the compensation of the
magnetic forces. The numerical calculations have demon-
strated that with the new configuration of the magneto-
caloric materials, the resulting force in the cooling machine
can be markedly reduced (Balli et al., 2011). The experi-
mental measurements of the magnetic force performed on
our developed machine have confirmed the simulation re-
sults. The calculations demonstrate that more than 90% of
Fig. 9 e Example of the obtained temperature span.
the needed mechanical energy during magnetization-
demagnetization process can be saved which increases the
coefficient of performance (COP).
\Besides, to reach a large temperature span between the
hot and the cold sources, a modified Active Magnetic
Refrigeration (AMR) cycle was adopted and adapted to the
new configuration of the regenerator. Fig. 8 shows a general
view of the developed device. This latter is constituted of two
magnetic sources to double cooling power, four heat ex-
changers and two regenerators with MC plates. The magne-
tocaloric blocks movement is driven by a linear actuator. In
Fig. 9, we present an example of the obtained temperature
span (30 K) between hot and cold sources, after a number of
AMR cycles.
4. Conclusions
The Montreal and Kyoto regulations have opened the way for
the emergence of new refrigeration technologies and new
product markets.
From Warburg, Edison and Tesla, Weiss and Piccard, Debye
and Giauque, and recently Brown, Steyert, Gschneidner and
other scientists, magnetic refrigeration near room tempera-
ture becomes alive and today a proof of the concept is
established.
The various developed demonstrators let us foresee the
importance of various components such as MCM shape, direct
cycles or regeneration cycles, nature of the cooling fluid,
magnetic field, heat exchangers, pressure drops, etc. The
development of new materials with high magnetocaloric
performance makes it possible to deal with the requirements
of technical applications. In addition question as how to
improve magnetic field, the regeneration efficiency and the
heat transfer efficiency should be also considered.
Based on the obtained results by different groups, mag-
netic refrigeration is a promising technology. However,
although the future of magnetic cooling is bright, there are
still a number of challenges.
The gap to be bridged in going from MCE principle to a
competitive device that meets the user’s needs is then
demanding but constitutes a rich and exiting experience for
both, scientists and engineers.
 i n t e r n a t i o n a l j o u r n a l o f r e f r i g e r a t i o n 3 7 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 8 e1 5
Acknowledgements
We further are grateful to State of Canton de Vaud,
Switzerland, OFEN e Switzerland, the University of Applied
Sciences of Western Switzerland (HES-SO-Yverdon-les-Bains),
INTERREG IV-A France Suisse. We acknowledge their financial
support.
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