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Enhanced Electrocaloric Effect in Relaxor Ferroelectric Terpolymers by Morphotropic Phase Boundary
Linxiao Xu1,2, Yutie Gong1,2, Shengfei Tang1,2
1State Key Laboratory of Material Processing and Die & Mould Technology, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, 430074, China.
New electrocaloric polymers show enhanced cooling effects. Poly(vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene-chlorofluoroethylene) terpolymers near the morphotropic phase boundary achieve significant temperature changes at low electric fields, advancing refrigeration technology.
Area of Science:
- Materials Science
- Condensed Matter Physics
- Polymer Science
Background:
- Relaxor ferroelectric terpolymers are explored for electrocaloric cooling.
- Existing terpolymers show limited electrocaloric effects at low electric fields due to high chiral comonomer content.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate enhanced electrocaloric effects in novel terpolymer compositions.
- To explore the potential of poly(vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene-chlorofluoroethylene) near the morphotropic phase boundary for improved electrocaloric performance.
Main Methods:
- Synthesized and characterized poly(vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene-chlorofluoroethylene) terpolymers.
- Investigated the electrocaloric effect under low electric fields at room temperature.
Main Results:
- Achieved an adiabatic temperature change of 3.2 K with an electric field of 50 MV m⁻¹.
- Demonstrated a ≈90% enhancement in electrocaloric response compared to pure relaxor counterparts.
- Observed an electric-field-induced disorder-to-order phase transition contributing to the enhanced effect.
Conclusions:
- Terpolymers near the morphotropic phase boundary offer a promising route for enhanced electrocaloric cooling.
- The findings suggest a viable alternative for practical electrocaloric refrigeration devices.
- The study highlights the importance of composition tuning for optimizing electrocaloric polymer performance.
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