Magnetocaloric properties of La(Fe,Si)13-based material and its hydride prepared by industrial mischmetal

Abstract

Here, we choose La-Ce-Pr-Nd industrial mischmetal with low purity as raw material to prepare La(Fe,Si)13-based magnetocaloric material and its hydride. It is demonstrated that the introduced impurities in the starting materials do not impair the formation of NaZn13-type structure. The multi-replacement of La by magnetic atoms Ce,Pr,Nd enhances Curie temperature TC while keeps the strong itinerant electron metamagnetic behavior. As a result, good magnetocaloric (MCE) properties appear in La0.7(Ce,Pr,Nd)0.3Fe11.6Si1.4 (LRFS) compound. The incorporation of interstitial H atom remarkably reduces hysteresis loss while increases TC to 314 K. The effective refrigeration capacity after deducting hysteresis can be increased by ∼128% upon H doping.