Colossal and reversible barocaloric effect in liquid-solid-transition materials n-alkanes

Emerging caloric cooling technology provides a green alternative to conventional vapor-compression technology which brings about serious environmental problems. However, the reported caloric materials are much inferior to their traditional counterparts in cooling capability. Here we report the barocaloric (BC) effect associated with the liquid-solid-transition (L-S-T) in n-alkanes. A low-pressure of ~50 MPa reversibly triggers an entropy change of ~700 J kg(−1) K(−1), comparable to those of the commercial refrigerants in vapor-based compression systems. The Raman study and theoretical calculations reveal that applying pressure to the liquid state suppresses the twisting and random thermal motions of molecular chains, resulting in a lower configurational entropy. When the pressure is strong enough to drive the L-S-T, the configurational entropy will be fully suppressed and induce the colossal BC effect. This work could open a new avenue for exploring the colossal BC effect by evoking L-S-T materials.