A cold storage material, which has a large specific heat and a small magnetization in an extremely low temperature region and has satisfactory manufacturability, is provided, and a method for manufacturing the same is provided. Further, a refrigerator having high efficiency and excellent cooling performance is provided by filling this refrigerator with the above-described cold storage material. Moreover, a device incorporating a superconducting coil capable of reducing influence of magnetic noise derived from a cold storage material is provided. The cold storage material of embodiments is a granular body composed of an intermetallic compound in which the ThCr.sub.2Si.sub.2-type structure 11 occupies 80% by volume or more, and has a crystallite size of 70 nm or less.

The systems and methods described herein relate to remote cooling. More particularly, the systems described herein include a side to be cooled coupled to an object to be cooled, and a side where heat is dissipated at a distant location. The side to be cooled includes a thermodynamic energy converter and a coil that is electrically coupled to the thermodynamic energy converter. The side where heat is dissipated includes a coil configured to inductively couple with the coil of the side to be cooled. The side where heat is dissipated also includes a heating element electrically coupled to the second coil. The heating element is configured to convert electrical energy into thermal energy. The thermodynamic energy converter absorbs thermal energy from the object to be cooled and converts, directly or indirectly, the thermal energy into electrical energy. The electrical energy is transmitted from the side to be cooled to the side where heat is dissipated by wirelessly coupling the cold and side where heat is dissipated coils. At the side where heat is dissipated, the electrical energy is converted back into thermal energy by the heating element, and the thermal energy is dissipated.

Described are magnetocaloric materials comprising manganese, iron, phosphorus, silicon, carbon and optionally one or both of nitrogen and boron, and processes for producing said magnetocaloric materials.

A magnetocaloric material comprising a La—Fe—Si based alloy composition that is compositionally modified to include a small but effective amount of at least one of Al, Ga, and In to improve mechanical stability of the alloy (substantially reduce alloy brittleness), improve thermal conductivity, and preserve comparable or provide improved magnetocaloric effects. The alloy composition may be further modified by inclusion of at least one of Co, Mn, Cr, and V as well as interstitial hydrogen.

Systems and methods disclosed herein relate to a cryogenic refrigeration system which may use a compression based cryocooler or liquid nitrogen pre-cool to cool a medium to ˜80K, and may in conjunction with a magnetic refrigeration system operating in the sub-80K temperature regime to provide cooling to a medium to temperatures below 80K. In some embodiments, the disclosed system may be useful for cooling on the order of about 3 kg/day to about 300 kg/day of hydrogen gas to liquid form, with higher efficiency than a standard vapor compression based system. This higher efficiency may make the system a more attractive candidate for use in cryogenic cooling applications.

A system including: an active magnetic regenerative refrigerator apparatus that includes a high magnetic field section in which a hydrogen heat transfer fluid can flow from a cold side to a hot side through at least one magnetized bed of at least one magnetic refrigerant, and a low magnetic field or demagnetized section in which the hydrogen heat transfer fluid can flow from a hot side to a cold side through the demagnetized bed; a first conduit fluidly coupled between the cold side of the low magnetic field or demagnetized section and the cold side of the high magnetic field section; and a second conduit fluid coupled to the first conduit, an expander and at least one liquefied hydrogen storage module.

A magnetocaloric material comprising a La—Fe—Si based alloy composition that is compositionally modified to include a small but effective amount of at least one of Al, Ga, and In to improve mechanical stability of the alloy (substantially reduce alloy brittleness), improve thermal conductivity, and preserve comparable or provide improved magnetocaloric effects. The alloy composition may be further modified by inclusion of at least one of Co, Mn, Cr, and V as well as interstitial hydrogen.

A polycrystalline magnetocaloric material based on thermally annealed Fe.sub.100-xRh.sub.x melt-spun ribbons with chemical composition x in the interval 48≤x≤52 at. % and the bcc CsCl-type crystal structure (B2) and method for manufacturing the same. The material has improved magnetocaloric properties associated to first-order magneto-elastic phase transition compared to bulk alloys of similar chemical composition manufactured by conventional melting techniques; exhibiting both low-magnetic field induced giant magnetocaloric effects and enhanced refrigeration capacity close to the room temperature range, due to the fast increase of a magnetic entropy change at low fields that is followed by a broad table-like magnetic entropy change as function in the temperature curve. The material is useful as a working substance for the applications involving heating or cooling upon the removal or application of an external magnetic field, such as magnetocaloric refrigeration, heat exchangers, controllable delivery and release of bio-active substances imbedded in a thermo-sensitive polymer and local heating which destroy malignant neoplasms.

This invention relates to magnetocaloric materials comprising ternary alloys useful for magnetic refrigeration applications. The disclosed ternary alloys are Cerium, Neodymium, and/or Gadolinium based compositions that are fairly inexpensive, and in some cases exhibit only 2.sup.nd order magnetic phase transitions near their curie temperature, thus there are no thermal and structural hysteresis losses. This makes these compositions attractive candidates for use in magnetic refrigeration applications. The performance of the disclosed materials is similar or better to many of the known expensive rare-earth based magnetocaloric materials.

A cold storage material, which has a large specific heat and a small magnetization in an extremely low temperature region and has satisfactory manufacturability, is provided, and a method for manufacturing the same is provided. Further, a refrigerator having high efficiency and excellent cooling performance is provided by filling this refrigerator with the above-described cold storage material. Moreover, a device incorporating a superconducting coil capable of reducing influence of magnetic noise derived from a cold storage material is provided. The cold storage material of embodiments is a granular body composed of an intermetallic compound in which the ThCr.sub.2Si.sub.2-type structure 11 occupies 80% by volume or more, and has a crystallite size of 70 nm or less.