Research Trend of Metal-Organic Frameworks for Magnetic Refrigeration Materials Application

The magnetocaloric effect (MCE), which is the reversible temperature change of magnetic materials due to an applied magnetic field, occurs largely in the vicinity of the magnetic phase transition temperature. This phenomenon can be used to induce magnetic refrigeration, a viable, energy-efficient solid-state cooling technology. Recently, Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), due to their structural diversity of tunable crystalline pore structure and chemical functionality, have been studied as good candidates for magnetic refrigeration materials in the cryogenic region. In cryogenic cooling applications, MCE using MOF can have great potential, and is even considered comparable to conventional lanthanum alloys and magnetic nanoparticles. Owing to the presence of large internal pores, however, MOF also exhibits the drawback of low magnetic density. To overcome this problem, therefore, recent reports in literature that achieve high magnetic entropy change using a dense structure formation and ligand tuning are introduced.