MOLECULAR COOLERS

Operation co-funded by EU cohesion policy (European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)) under the programme Multi-regional Spain - ERDF (2014ES16RFOP002), managing authority: Subdirección General de Gestión del FEDER, de la Dirección General de Fondos Europeos del Ministerio de Hacienda.. The source names no beneficiary for this operation. Location: Zaragoza Province (NUTS ES243); Spain. Budget: total eligible expenditure EUR 145,200; EU co-financing EUR 72,600 (co-financing rate 50%), as stated by the source. Runs 2019-09-01 to 2022-08-31. Source: Kohesio, EU cohesion policy projects managed by national and regional authorities (not CORDIS); selected because its summary names quantum technology. Summary from Kohesio (English machine translation by the source): THE EUROPEAN SCIENCE FOUNDATION, THROUGH THE MATERIALS SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING EXPERT COMMITTEE, IDENTIFIES THE MAGNETOCALORIC REFRIGERATION AS A MILESTONE OF THE ENERGY SOCIETAL CHALLENGE. ADVANCED FUNCTIONAL MATERIALS, AS IMPROVED MAGNETIC REFRIGERANTS, OFFER THE POSSIBILITY TO BUILD COMPACT AND ENERGETICALLY EFFICIENT MAGNETIC COOLING SYSTEMS BASED ON THE MAGNETOCALORIC EFFECT (MCE). BESIDES, ADIABATIC DEMAGNETIZATION REFRIGERATORS (ADRS) ARE A MEAN TO ELIMINATE THE DEPENDENCE ON HELIUM, WHICH EU HAS RECENTLY CATEGORIZED AS A CRITICAL RAW MATERIAL BECAUSE OF ITS LIMITED SUPPLY. GROUND-BREAKING RESULTS FROM US AND OTHER TOP-LEADING GROUPS HAVE SHOWN THAT MOLECULE-BASED MAGNETIC MATERIALS ARE HIGHLY ATTRACTIVE ALTERNATIVES TO CONVENTIONAL CRYOGENIC MAGNETIC REFRIGERANTS. THE MAIN CHARACTERISTIC OF MOLECULE-BASED MAGNETIC MATERIALS IS THEIR HIGH CHEMICAL MODULARITY, WHICH PERMITS CHANGING THEIR PROPERTIES AT WILL. WITHIN OUR PROPOSAL ¿MOLECULAR REFRIGERANTS¿ (THAT IS, ¿REFRIGERANTES MOLECULARES¿, REMO), WE WILL TACKLE EXPERIMENTAL CHALLENGES THAT REMAIN AHEAD IN ORDER TO BRING THESE MATERIALS CLOSER TO MAGNETIC COOLING APPLICATIONS. WE WILL CONSIDER MOLECULE-BASED MAGNETIC REFRIGERANTS FROM TWO PERSPECTIVES ¿ AS BULK/MASSIVE REFRIGERANTS FOR MORE ¿CONVENTIONAL¿ ADRS AND AS THIN-FILMS/DROPLETS ANCHORED TO SILICON SURFACE FOR ADVANCED ON-CHIP MICROREFRIGERATORS. FOR BULK STUDIES, WE WILL FOCUS ON TOPICS THAT ARE OF CURRENT INTEREST AND PARTICULARLY PROMISING FOR MAGNETIC COOLING APPLICATIONS, NAMELY MCE IN ANISOTROPIC MAGNETS AND MCE IN FRUSTRATED QUANTUM MAGNETS. IN PARALLEL, WE WILL ADVANCE FURTHER WITH THE DEVELOPMENT OF EXPERIMENTAL TOOLS, NAMELY MEMBRANE-BASED NANO-CALORIMETRY AND SUB-KELVIN DIRECT MEASUREMENTS OF MCE, WHICH HAVE ALREADY MADE VALUABLE CONTRIBUTIONS TO THIS RESEARCH FIELD. THE ULTIMATE GOAL OF OUR PROPOSAL IS TO REDUCE THE SIZE OF REFRIGERATORS DOWN TO THE SMALLEST SCALE, PROGRESSING TOWARDS INNOVATIVE NICHE APPLICATIONS. WE WILL FABRICATE [shortened; the full text is on the Kohesio page]

Original source.

Source: Kohesio (EU cohesion policy projects), European Commission, Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy (DG REGIO). Retrieved 2026-10-21. Licence: CC0 1.0 (Cohesion Open Data Platform, dataset 2014-2020 Kohesio projects). Selected metadata, adapted presentation; the publisher's record is authoritative. No endorsement by the source is implied. Licence: public domain dedication (CC0 1.0).

AI-assisted summary: The 'Molecular Coolers' operation, co-funded by the EU's ERDF, is based in Zaragoza Province, Spain, with a budget of EUR 145,200. It runs from September 1, 2019, to August 31, 2022, focusing on magnetocaloric refrigeration technology. Suggested technology pillar: enabling. Generated by AI from the public source text; it may contain errors and the original source is authoritative.