Chinese scientists have unveiled a groundbreaking refrigeration technology that simultaneously addresses three critical challenges: carbon emissions reduction, high cooling capacity, and superior heat transfer efficiency. Published in the prestigious journal Nature, this discovery represents a potential paradigm shift in thermal management systems.
The research team, led by Dr. Li Bing from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Metal Research, identified a novel dissolution barocaloric effect in an NH₄SCN salt solution. This innovative approach leverages pressure changes to trigger dramatic temperature fluctuations. When pressure is applied, solid NH₄SCN precipitates and releases heat; during depressurization, the salt rapidly dissolves while absorbing substantial thermal energy.
Laboratory results demonstrate remarkable performance characteristics: at room temperature, the solution’s temperature plummets by nearly 30 degrees Celsius within just 20 seconds. The cooling efficiency increases further at elevated temperatures, significantly outperforming existing solid-state caloric materials that have struggled with heat transfer limitations.
This breakthrough unifies the refrigerant and heat-transfer medium into a single fluid system, eliminating the efficiency compromises that have hampered previous environmentally friendly cooling technologies. The research team has designed a four-step cyclic system incorporating pressurization for heating, environmental heat dissipation, depressurization for cooling, and cooling capacity delivery.
Computational simulations reveal extraordinary potential: each cycle achieves 67 joules of heat absorption per gram of solution with an unprecedented 77 percent energy efficiency rating. This performance metric suggests strong commercial viability, particularly for large-scale applications such as data center cooling systems where thermal management represents both a technical challenge and significant operational expense.
The timing of this innovation coincides with growing global concerns about cooling-related energy consumption. According to the United Nations Environment Programme’s Global Cooling Watch 2025, worldwide cooling demand may triple by 2050 compared to 2022 levels, potentially doubling associated greenhouse gas emissions without technological intervention.
This discovery not only establishes a new fundamental principle for refrigeration but provides the scientific foundation for developing next-generation cooling technologies that combine environmental sustainability with commercial-grade performance requirements.
