Based on the science behind the practice of adding salt to roads to prevent ice from forming, researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have developed a new method of heating and cooling.

Ionocaloric cooling takes advantage of the process by which energy, or heat, is stored or released when a material changes phase – such as changing from a solid to a liquid state. For example, while material absorbs heat from the surroundings, solidifying it releases heat.

Following a similar process, the Berkeley Lab team used salt ions to cause changes in temperature. They expect this new method could eventually provide efficient heating and cooling and help phase out current 'vapor compression' systems, which use gases with high global warming potential as refrigerants.

In addition, ionocaloric refrigeration would eliminate the risk of such gases escaping into the atmosphere by replacing them with solid...