Outstanding Comprehensive Performance of La(Fe, Si)(13)H-y/In Composite with Durable Service Life for Magnetic Refrigeration

Magnetic refrigeration based on magnetocaloric effect (MCE) has become a promisingly alternative technology to the conventional vapor-compression refrigeration. A great number of magnetic materials have been reported to exhibit larger MCE than that of the benchmark magnetic refrigerant Gd. However, these materials still have severe shortcomings on the Non-MCE properties, such as hard preparation and fabrication, low thermal conductivity lambda, and poor corrosion resistance and cycling stabilities, which hinder the practical application of these materials. In this paper, a novel La(Fe, Si)(13)H-y/In composite which is prepared by a readily available hot pressing method is demonstrated to exhibit an outstanding comprehensive performance with durable service life in various aspects. Noteworthily, the S-M does not decrease but increases with increasing nonmagnetic In metal. This advantageous anomaly is related to the strengthening of the first-order itinerant electron metamagnetic transition induced by residual compression stress and surrounded constraints in the composite. The present results make La(Fe, Si)(13)H-y/In composite the most attractive alternative to Gd for magnetic refrigeration. Moreover, this work also provides a feasible way to solve the serious issues toward applications for La(Fe, Si)(13)-based materials and other brittle magnetocaloric materials.