DEAcool · Dielectric Electro-Active-Polymer-driven Elastocaloric machines for a new generation of cooling systems

While the global demand for cooling is rising exponentially with growing data center capacities and space cooling demands in highly populated regions (China, India, Indonesia), there is no alternative to inefficient and environmentally harmful vapor-compression systems. The search for more efficient and sustainable cooling solutions has drawn attention to novel solid-state cooling technologies like magneto-, elasto-, or electrocalorics. Specifically, elastocalorics (EC) research is showing promising results with the development of new highly-efficient materials (material COPs over 30) and several functional system devices pushing achievable cooling powers, temperature spans and system efficiencies (COP: coefficient of performance).To drive EC cooling and heating systems, either hydraulic actuators or electrical motors are used, depending on the scale and target application. To reach maximum efficiency on system level, electrical drives show most promise, yet all available drive technologies today present a bottleneck regarding the cooling systems’ construction space and weight. For future mobile cooling applications like transportation of foods and medical products, size and weight critical applications like e-mobility and aerospace or visionary cooling (or heating) textiles and wearables, alternative drives for EC systems are needed.With this project, we will for the first time use electro-active-polymer (EAP) actuator technology in EC systems and lay a foundation for future lightweight and highly integrable efficient cooling solutions. To achieve this goal, we will 1) create base knowledge on the interaction between EAPs and EC materials, 2) develop new EC cooling system concepts using EAP actuators and 3) realize several proof-of-concept demonstrators for validation in a) applications demanding compact/lightweight cooling (medical, automotive/aerospace) and b) textile integrated systems.This project will push the frontiers of sustainable and efficient cooling.