The Institut Grand Ducal (Section des Sciences) and the University of Luxembourg organise a public evening lecture with Dr Emmanuel DEFAY from the Luxembourg Institute for Science and Technology (LIST).
Dr Emmanuel DEFAY will talk about his breakthrough discoveries in electrocaloric materials (which gave rise to two publications in nature and science and are also at the basis of his recently awarded ERC advanced grant).
We are looking forward to welcoming you to a stimulating talk followed by a “networking drink” in a relaxed atmosphere. The talk will be understandable for everybody with a general background in science and engineering.
Abstract
According to the International Energy Agency, cooling our food and houses requires today 20 % of all the energy needed in the residential sector. This share will grow to 40 % by 2040 as a direct consequence of the world population increase and the global warming effect. The existing cooling technologies are overwhelmingly dominated by the vapour-compression systems, which is a 150-year-old technology relying on greenhouse gases and exhibiting an average efficiency of less than 50 %. The latter figure means that more than half of the energy utilized to run fridges and air conditioning is simply wasted in local heating. We clearly need to come up with more efficient cooling principles.
In LIST, we have been working on a new principle of refrigeration based on electrocaloric materials, which are able to cool down with voltage. The genuine advantage of such materials is their energy efficiency that can surpass our fridges’ efficiency. In this talk, I will present this family of materials, how this effect appears and how to use it. This will give the opportunity to show our last discoveri es on the topic.