Magnetocaloric Properties Of La(Fe,Si)(13)-Based Material And Its Hydride Prepared By Industrial Mischmetal

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 T-C while keeps the strong itinerant electron metamagnetic behavior. As a result, good magnetocaloric (MCE) properties appear in La-0.7(Ce,Pr,Nd)(0.3)Fe11.6Si1.4 (LRFS) compound. The incorporation of interstitial H atom remarkably reduces hysteresis loss while increases T-C to 314 K. The effective refrigeration capacity after deducting hysteresis can be increased by similar to 128% upon H doping. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4760262]