Scientists Invented an Entirely New Method of Refrigeration
9th March 2026
Say hello to ionocaloric cooling. It’s a new way to lower temperatures, with the potential to replace existing chilling methods with a safer, better-for-the-planet process.
Typical refrigeration systems transport heat away from a space via a fluid that absorbs heat as it evaporates into a gas, which is then transported through a closed tube and condensed back into a liquid.
As effective as this process is, some of the choice materials we use as refrigerants are particularly unfriendly to the environment.
There is, however, more than one way a substance can be forced to absorb and shed heat energy.
A method unveiled in 2023, developed by researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California, Berkeley, takes advantage of how energy is stored or released when a material changes phase, as when solid ice turns to liquid water, for example.