An international team of researchers from the University of Texas at Dallas and Nankai University, China, has discovered a new refrigeration technology based on twisting and untwisting fibres.
The team claims to have demonstrated twist-based refrigeration using materials as diverse as natural rubber, ordinary fishing line and nickel titanium wire.
“Our group has demonstrated what we call twistocaloric cooling by changing the twist in fibres. We call coolers that use twist changes for refrigeration twist fridges,” said Dr Ray Baughman, director of the Alan G MacDiarmid NanoTech Institute at UT Dallas.
The effect of stretching and unstretching a rubber band is known as elastocaloric cooling.
“This elastocaloric behavior of natural rubber has been known since the early 1800s. But to get high cooling from a rubber band, you have to release a very large stretch,” Baughman said. “With twistocaloric cooling, we found that all you have to do is release twist.”
