Objective:

The entire air conditioning technology, but also current and future key technologies such as artificial intelligence or quantum computers, are unthinkable without heating and, above all, cooling devices. This applies to Germany, but to an even greater extent to the USA, China and India. For reducing the associated CO₂ emissions alternative cooling and heating concepts that require less energy and use environmentally friendly materials are of great importance. With those considered in this project, so-called “magnetocaloric” materials should succeed in technical innovations that contribute to energy-saving and environmentally friendly refrigeration - from private households to industrial use. The cooling is based on a conversion of the crystalline structure of the materials that can be controlled by a magnetic field, during which energy is released or is saved. This process can replace the classic cooling by compression and expansion in compressors, often using environmentally harmful refrigerants. Together with the industrial partner Miele, the entire process chain from the experimental production and characterization of the magnetocaloric materials to their theoretical description can be implemented up to the construction of a demonstrator and digitized throughout. Digitization is based on a new approach to the scalable development of extensive ontologies, that digitally represent all process data and intentions. Using a special process, these structured and unstructured data are used to train a high-dimensional data space to gain completely digital new knowledge about material-physical relationships via analogy inferences. The long-term goal is to build a digital data base for magnetocaloric material and its use for the discovery and development of better material properties in order to make progress faster, more effective and more cost-effective in the future.

Cooperation between the partners: