Nature Communications (Jan 2024)

Low-k nano-dielectrics facilitate electric-field induced phase transition in high-k ferroelectric polymers for sustainable electrocaloric refrigeration

  • Qiang Li,
  • Luqi Wei,
  • Ni Zhong,
  • Xiaoming Shi,
  • Donglin Han,
  • Shanyu Zheng,
  • Feihong Du,
  • Junye Shi,
  • Jiangping Chen,
  • Houbing Huang,
  • Chungang Duan,
  • Xiaoshi Qian

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-44926-8
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 15, no. 1
pp. 1 – 10

Abstract

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Abstract Ferroelectric polymer-based electrocaloric effect may lead to sustainable heat pumps and refrigeration owing to the large electrocaloric-induced entropy changes, flexible, lightweight and zero-global warming potential. Herein, low-k nanodiamonds are served as extrinsic dielectric fillers to fabricate polymeric nanocomposites for electrocaloric refrigeration. As low-k nanofillers are naturally polar-inactive, hence they have been widely applied for consolidate electrical stability in dielectrics. Interestingly, we observe that the nanodiamonds markedly enhances the electrocaloric effect in relaxor ferroelectrics. Compared with their high-k counterparts that have been extensively studied in the field of electrocaloric nanocomposites, the nanodiamonds introduces the highest volumetric electrocaloric enhancement (~23%/vol%). The resulting polymeric nanocomposite exhibits concurrently improved electrocaloric effect (160%), thermal conductivity (175%) and electrical stability (125%), which allow a fluid-solid coupling-based electrocaloric refrigerator to exhibit an improved coefficient of performance from 0.8 to 5.3 (660%) while maintaining high cooling power (over 240 W) at a temperature span of 10 K.