Hydrofluorocarbons are the chemicals that currently make the air conditioner in your car or the cooling system in your refrigerator work. These chemicals are perfectly safe in the captive environment of the equipment they operate in, however, conditions change and they escape. Cars get in accidents, and refrigerators go without maintenance too many years causing the the seals to dry out. Dry seals lead to escaped gases or chemicals.

We have very good control of these issues since the 1970s. The thing is, this new process could be cheaper and safer. The effect has already been recorded so the race is on to make it work in real world situations.

What we are talking about is a property of some substances to lose heat when they are exposed to changing magnetic fields. The process of this is called the magnetocaloric effect. Calories are a measure of heat, so the name literally means magnetic heat effect. Any time you have an exchange of heat, one material has a temperature drop while the other has a gain. Refrigeration and heating systems are all about controlling this process.

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