Elastocaloric cooling: A pathway towards future cooling technology

Elastocaloric cooling is emerging as a promising alternative to conventional vapor compression systems due to its potential for energy savings and significant temperature lift compared to other solid-state cooling technologies. This technology harnesses the latent heat associated with the martensitic phase transition of shape memory alloys to generate the desired cooling or heating effect. This paper comprehensively reviews the fundamentals of elastocaloric cooling systems, including the thermodynamics cycle and various materials used. It also presents the latest advancements in elastocaloric systems, focusing on heat transfer enhancement, actuator development, and prototype summaries. Additionally, this paper introduces a new non-dimensional performance parameter to evaluate different elastocaloric prototypes and discusses key aspects necessary to achieve potentially high-performance elastocaloric devices. Finally, we propose an approach for future elastocaloric device development.