Emerging Magnetic Cooling Technology

This emerging technology is called magnetocaloric or solid-state cooling. It works completely differently than existing cooling technology that uses a compressor to compress a refrigerant (thus taking it to high pressure and high temperature), and pushes it through the condenser, where it is cooled by ambient air thus passing from the gas to the liquid state. At the liquid state it then passes through the expansion device being a much lower pressure the refrigerant arrives to the evaporator where it absorbs the necessary heat to change from liquid to gas state. The gas is then drawn back into the compressor completing the cycle.

Magnetocaloric cooling uses an element like gadolinium (Gd, 64) or a mineral called atacamite combined with a magnet that is moved in and out of close proximity a cooling effect is created by aligning and un-aligning molecules. A magnetic field creates an alignment of the molecules that reduces the entropy of the element or mineral which releases heat. When the magnet is withdrawn, entropy increases and heat is absorbed from the area around the element or mineral.

This process is being tuned by at least one major appliance manufacturer that plans to release refrigeration products based on this technology in 2028.

Sources:
1. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-cooling-gases-molecular-solid-state.html
2. The Forge Empire https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx2i0i6dxT4