Heating and cooling buildings currently relies on burning natural gas or compressing volatile fluorinated gases, both of which are inefficient and environmentally harmful. This project aims to replace those gases with solid materials that heat up or cool down when squeezed under pressure—a phenomenon called the barocaloric effect. The researchers are developing hybrid composite materials that combine organic compounds (which produce large temperature changes) with inorganic compounds (which conduct heat well and lose less energy through repeated cycling). If successful, the resulting heat pumps would use no greenhouse gases, operate more efficiently than current vapour-compression systems, and run on electricity that can come from renewable sources. The team is also building an economic and policy strategy to help commercialise the technology. Because heating and cooling account for the largest share of UK energy consumption and emissions, barocaloric heat pumps could decarbonise a major part of the national energy system, reduce reliance on imported gas, and position the UK as a leader in an emerging clean technology sector.
View original technical description
Heating and cooling are essential to our lives. We rely on them for comfort in our homes and vehicles, and businesses need heating and cooling for productive workplaces and industrial processes. Taken together, space and process heating and cooling represent the biggest contribution to the UK's energy consumption, and the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions. Heating is primarily provided from burning natural gas, whereas cooling is primarily provided from compressing volatile fluorinated gases. However, these conventional technologies are neither efficient, not friendly to the environment. Barocaloric effects are reversible thermal changes that occur in mechanically responsive solids when subjected to changes in pressure. These effects are analogous to the pressure-induced thermal changes in gases that are exploited in current heat pumps, but they promise higher energy efficiencies and obviate the need for harmful greenhouse gases. We aim at developing an energy-efficient barocaloric heat pump based on novel barocaloric hybrid composite materials that combine the best properties of organic barocaloric materials, namely extremely large pressure-driven thermal changes, and the best of inorganic barocaloric materials, namely high thermal conductivity and low hysteresis. A technological transformation of this magnitude will require the development of bespoke economic and policy strategies for its successful deployment. Therefore, we aim at developing a fully integrated bespoke economic and policy strategy that will support the innovation of BC heat pumps through to commercialisation. The achievement of heat pumps that operate using barocaloric materials instead of gases will permit decarbonising heating and cooling, provide energy independence, and enable the UK to become the world leader on this emerging technology.
Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.
Is something wrong? Let us know