Magnetocaloric properties of multicomponent Laves phase compounds and their composites

Abstract

Heat capacity measurements have been performed for multicomponent (Ho0.9Er0.1)1-xGdxCo2 compounds with x = 0.05, 0.1, and 0.15. The isothermal magnetic entropy change, ΔSmag, allowing the estimation of the magnetocaloric effect, was determined based on the heat capacity measurements in magnetic fields up to 2 T. A numerical method, with the magnetic entropy change of individual (Ho0.9Er0.1)1-xGdxCo2 compounds, was used to calculate the optimal molar composition of the constituents and the resulting change of the isothermal magnetic entropy of composite, ΔScomp. The results show that proposed composite can be considered as a refrigerant material in magnetic refrigerators performing an Ericsson cycle in a temperature range of 90-130 K.