Special Issue Editor
https://doi.org/10.33263/Materials21.051051
Xuexi Zhang 
, 
* Correspondence: xxzhang@hit.edu.cn
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China
Interests: Prof. Xuexi Zhang’s research interests covers the shape memory alloys (SMAs) and teir underlying functional properties for sensors, actuators and solid-state cooling applications. He paied much attention on low-dimensional ferromagnetic shape memory alloys, including foams, microres and paticles, for tailoring the structures and properties of caloric cooling, e.g. refrigeration capacity, working temperature window, cycling stability and reversiblity. His research interests also covers the metal-matrix composites for advanced structures in industries.
Special Issue Information
Aim and Scope: In the past decades, solid-state cooling based on the various caloric effects has become an emerging technology which may provide the solution to replace the traditional vapor compression technique due to its high efficiency, inexpensive and eco-friendship. The caloric related materials undergoing phase transitions may exhibit the large adiabatic temperature change or isothermally entropy change under the influence of magnetic fields, uniaxial stresses, hydrostatic pressure or electric field, which corresponds to magnetocaloric effect (MCE), elastocaloric effect (eCE), barocaloric effect (BCE) or electrocaloric effect (ECE). In recent years, researchers have paid more and more attention to various novel caloric related materials, such as ferromagnetic shape memory alloys (FMSMAs) and rare-earth containing compounds, with the aim to achieve the properties for near-future applications. In order to reveal the great development in this emerging field of caloric effects and related materials, the collection aims to gather high quality papers in the topic of material design, processing-microstructure-property characterization and application.
I kindly invite you to submit a manuscript(s) for this Special Issue. Full papers, communications, and reviews are all welcome.
Subtopics: Magnetocaloric effects (MCE); Elastocaloric effects (eCE); Barocaloric effects (BCE); Electrocaloric effect (ECE); Application of MCE, eCE, BCE and ECE.
Keywords: Solid-state refrigeration; Magnetocaloric effects (MCE); Elastocaloric effects (eCE); Barocaloric effects (BCE); Electrocaloric effect (ECE); Shape memory alloys (SMAs); Magnetic refrigeration (MR); Superelasticity.
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 1st August 2020
Manuscript Submission Information
All submissions to Materials International should be made at review@materials.international. The corresponding author has the responsibility of the manuscript during the submission and peer-reviewing process. Please do not forget to state in the email “Subject” the title of this special issue.
Submission Checklist
- read the Aim & Scope to gain an overview and assess if your manuscript is suitable for this journal;
- use the Microsoft Word Template to prepare your manuscript;
- make sure that issues about publication ethics, copyright, authorship, figure formats, data and references format have been appropriately considered;
- please try to cite only articles with DOI (digital object identifier); also add DOI for each reference;
- please add at least 10 references from the last 2 years (2018-2019) in order to highlight the novelty of your work;
- ensure that all authors have approved the content of the submitted manuscript.
Published papers
This special issue is now open for submission.
Planned papers
(1) Negative electrocaloric effect in antiferroelectric materials: a review
Ming Wu1, Huaqiang Li1, Jinghui Gao1, Lisheng Zhong1, Xiaojie Lou1, * and Stephen J. Pennycook2, *
1State Key Laboratory of Electrical Insulation and Power Equipment and Frontier Institute of Science and Technology, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, 710049, China.
2Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National University of Singapore, 9 Engineering Drive 1, 117575, Singapore
*Correspondence: xlou03@mail.xjtu.edu.cn (Xiaojie Lou)steve.pennycook@nus.edu.sg (Stephen J. Pennycook)
Abstract: The electrocaloric effect (ECE), which refers to a temperature change of a dielectric when applying or withdrawing an electric field, draws promising applications in solid-state cooling due to its high energy efficiency and environmental friendliness. The ECE includes two types, that is a positive effect and a negative effect, and it is reported that the combination of both positive and negative ECE can remarkably enhance the overall cooling ability of materials. Different from the widely existing positive ECE, negative ECE occurs in limited cases, that is, in ferroelectrics with different polar directions, in materials with defect induced internal bias fields, and the most importantly in antiferroelectrics. In this review, the fundamental theory and origin of the negative ECE are described and recent progress of negative ECE in antiferroelectric materials is especially focused. Finally, the existing challenges and future research directions are discussed.
(2) Processing Magnetocaloric Materials into Regenerators for Solid State Cooling Devices
Dustin Clifford, Anthony Duong, Omar Bishop and Radhika Barua*
Dept. of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA 23284
* Corresponding author: rbarua@vcu.edu
Abstract: Magnetocaloric cooling has remained a promising thermal regulation technology alternative to the >150-year-old vapor-compression based technology for over 3 decades. While a slew of magnetocaloric materials are known, they are routinely studied in their primitive particle, or bulk, form, and their reported caloric properties typically vary when the material is processed and fabricated into a real-world device regenerator, among a huge backdrop of regenerator bed engineering concerns. This focused article intends to address such shortcomings for magnetocaloric cooling development by critically assessing the most current reports on post-processing and fabrication of magnetocaloric regenerators by providing analysis and insight on relevant property-composition-fabrication relationships and trends. Issues addressed are mechanical and chemical instability, deleterious effects to caloric properties by processing as well as difficulties in obtaining precise geometries of regenerators. This review aims to encompass the methods of producing a magnetocaloric regenerator and suggests future outlook toward the development and manufacturing of 3D printed magnetocaloric bed architectures: a project currently underway by the authors.
(3) Microstructural Features and Electrical Properties of Ba(Ti1-xZrx)O3 Nanoceramics
Kerim Emre Öksüz1,*, Şaduman Şen 2, Uğur Şen 3
1 Sivas Cumhuriyet University, Department of Metallurgical & Materials Engineering, 58140, Sivas, Turkey; kerimemreoksuz@gmail.com
2 Sakarya University, Department of Metallurgical & Materials Engineering, 54187, Sakarya, Turkey; sdmnsen@sakarya.edu.tr
3 Sakarya University, Department of Metallurgical & Materials Engineering, 54187, Sakarya, Turkey; ugursen@sakarya.edu.tr,
*Correspondence: kerimemreoksuz@gmail.com
Abstract: Ba(Ti1-xZrx)O3, (x=0, 0-0.3) lead-free nanoceramics were synthesized using the solid-state reaction method by adopting the ball milling technique. The influence of the substitution content on crystallographic structure, phase transition, microstructure and electrical behavior of nanoceramics were investigated. XRD analysis at room temperature revealed a structural transformation from tetragonal to rhombohedral with enhancement of the ZrO2 content in the Barium titanate matrix. The field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) were used to investigate the microstructure and surface morphology of the sintered nanoceramics. The dielectric characteristics of Zr doped Barium titanate were studied with a Hioki 3532-50 LCR meter in the frequency range of 42 Hz–1 MHz. It is found that dielectric permittivity (ɛr) decreases and loss tan δ decreases with increase in Zirconium Oxide percentage. Neither of the samples shows semi conductivity, which is believed to be because of titanium vacancy compensation.
Keywords: BaTiO3, nanoceramics, dielectric properties, grain size, electronic materials.