Magnetic refrigeration: recent developments and alternative configurations

Magnetic refrigeration, based on magnetocaloric effect, is an upcoming environmentaly friendly technology with a high potential to improve energy efficiency and to reduce greenhouse gas emission. It is a multidisciplinary research theme and its real emergence requires, to overcome scientific and technical issues related to both material and system. This paper presents the state of the art in magnetic cooling, the main recent works achieved and discusses in more details the thermodynamic phenomenon according to the G2Elab experience in the field