Finite-element study of a high-performance cascaded barocaloric cooler

Barocaloric materials have experienced a significant progress in the last decade. However, barocaloric prototypes remain in the early stages of research and development. Here, the performance of a novel cascaded barocaloric cooler is investigated through finite-element modeling and optimized as a function of device and operational parameters, such as number of stages, applied pressure, compression rate and cycle period. The device operation is analyzed using material parameters for natural rubber and a prototypical colossal barocaloric material, two typical examples in recent literature. While our design displays a limited performance when using natural rubber, it shows outstanding values when operating with the colossal barocaloric material. In particular, it reaches a cooling power of 1.5 kW per kilogram of barocaloric material for a temperature span of 15 K and a second-law efficiency of 22%. Interestingly, colossal latent heat in the barocaloric material results in a nonlinear dependence of cooling power on temperature span, which highlights that matching operational window with cycles across the transition is key to maximize performance. Furthermore, we show that barocaloric cooling could soon surpass existing cooling technologies if emerging barocaloric materials, exhibiting similar colossal caloric effects at lower applied pressures and higher thermal conductivities, were used. • First solid-state barocaloric cascaded cooler studied via finite-element modeling. • Key features like latent heat, thick walls or pressure rate, are considered. • Performance metrics are analyzed using natural rubber and a colossal BC material. • COP r of ∼ 22% over 15 K is reached, comparable to commercial air conditioners.