refrigerants

While half of Europe fights the heat with a fan and air conditioning, in France, some businesses They have experienced real avalanches of buyers desperate to get their hands on a device before it runs out, according to they collect in Wired. Turning on these devices in half of Europe is precisely the type of situation that the European Union prefers to avoid for reasons of security. energy efficiency and consumption. However, a group of scientists and companies were already working on air conditioners that completely dispense with refrigerant gases. The first prototypes are already leaving the laboratory to be tested in real buildings. Air conditioners without refrigerants. Several research teams, most based in Europe, have developed cooling systems based on materials that change temperature by subjecting them to an external force (whether pressure, electric current or magnetic fields), instead of resorting to the traditional cycle of compression and expansion of gases. This technology is known as solid-state cooling and, according to the researchers themselves, it could completely change the way we cool our homes. Why does it matter? Conventional air conditioning works basically the same as it did a century ago, that is, a refrigerant gas circulates between a liquid and gaseous state to extract heat from a room and expel it outside. The problem is that many of these gases are extremely polluting. Fluorinated gases, the most common, can have a warming potential thousands of times greater than CO2 if they escape into the atmosphere, which is why the European Union approved in 2024 a regulation to progressively eliminate them. “In the next few years, air conditioners and heat pumps that use these gases will not even be able to be sold here,” explained to Wired Fabian Voswinkel, energy efficiency analyst at the International Energy Agency (IEA). The alternatives are not perfect either, as propane is highly flammable and ammonia is toxic. In detail. One of the most advanced projects is led by Paul Motzki, a professor at Saarland University in Germany, at the head of an EU-funded consortium working with a nickel-titanium alloy. According to they collect In the middle, by stretching and releasing this metal, it recovers its original shape by absorbing heat from the environment, a phenomenon known as the elastocaloric effect. Just like account Motzki told Wired, the system could cool rooms by between 5 and 10 degrees and do so more efficiently than current equipment. The team, which collaborates with the Irish company Exergyn, is already testing a prototype in the laboratory and hopes to install it in new buildings in the coming years. If confirmed, Motzki himself describes it as a technology that “could represent a disruption, even a paradigm shift,” due to how different it is from current systems. It is not the only path that is being explored. And just as stand out In the middle, the New York company Mimic Systems tests a heat pump based on semiconductors that moves heat using electric current, with a prototype installed in a Vancouver apartment. The German firm Magnotherm, a startup that was born from the Technical University of Darmstadt, uses magnetic fields and will test its system this year in a German supermarket chain before making the leap to domestic air conditioning. And in the United Kingdom, Barocal, born from the University of Cambridge itself, is experimenting with flexible plastic crystals that release heat when compressed and decompressed. In this case, the startup has recently raised $10 million in an initial round of financing, as highlighted in TechCrunch. Between the lines. None of this is yet ready for the mass market. Lindsay Rasmussen, who works with startups like Mimic Systems and Magnotherm at climate accelerator Third Derivative, recognize that these technologies are “promising, but unproven on a large scale.” Its takeoff, he adds, will depend on whether large air conditioning manufacturers (giants like Daikin or Samsung, which already closely monitor this type of advance) decide to adopt them and produce them in volume. unbearable heat. All this happens because Europe it’s warming up faster than any other continent, and countries with traditionally mild summers are beginning to suffer increasingly intense heat waves. A study by Nicole Miranda, a researcher at the University of Oxford, point because countries such as the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway or Finland could soon experience much more demand for cooling than in any other country if global warming reaches 2 degrees compared to the pre-industrial era. Still, just about 20% of European households has air conditioning (4% in the case of the United Kingdom), very far from 90% in the United States, according to IEA data. Miranda herself warns that the solution is not to buy inefficient portable devices en masse, but to offer “efficient, equitable and intelligent” refrigeration. And now what. Both Miranda and Voswinkel defend what they call a “hierarchy of cooling”, that is, first preventing buildings from overheating through trees, shade, reflective materials or natural ventilation, and only then resorting to active air conditioning, prioritizing spaces such as schools, hospitals or residences. As an example of this planning, Voswinkel cites the case of pariswhich expanded its district heating network to also distribute cold water from the Seine River through underground pipes and thus cool public buildings, ahead of the 2024 Olympic Games. Cover image | Dmitrii E. and Antonio Vallejo In Xataka | Carlos Llull, air conditioning technician: “Leaving the air conditioning on all night can cost around one euro in electricity”