Air Conditioning of Light Weight Vehicles Using Magnetic Refrigeration System

Abstract

Paris Agreement on Climate Change, at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, aimed to keep global temperature increment restricted to 2 ͦ C more than pre-industrial levels by 2100 and called for attempts to restrict the temperature increment even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius to avoid serious climate catastrophes around the world. The participants also aimed to lower the emission of the greenhouse gases by promoting the use of zero carbon technologies. The air conditioning system is one of the basic sub-system in automobiles. Conventional vehicles use vapour compression refrigeration technology for air conditioning purpose, but this technology is energy inefficient and the refrigerants that are used in this system are undesirable for environmental reasons. Researchers are constantly attempting to develop a more efficient alternative refrigeration system to prevent environmental pollution. Magnetic refrigeration is one of the emerging technology that has the potential to lower the carbon emissions. Magnetic refrigeration can reduce the energy consumption for refrigeration by 30% without the use of refrigerant. The magnetic refrigeration working principle is based upon the phenomenon commonly known as magneto-caloric effect (MCE). According to magneto-caloric effect (MCE), some exotic materials such as gadolinium and dysprosium, heat up when subjected to a magnetic field and cool down when the magnetic field is disconnected. The prime purpose of this paper is to design an efficient air conditioning technology for light weight automobiles which can operate on magneto-caloric effect and thus helps in reducing carbon footprints.