SBPMat Bulletin: Rubber under pressure for solid-state cooling

A team of researchers from Brazil has found that vulcanized natural rubber prevails over any other material already studied in its capacity to change temperature by being compressed and decompressed – a phenomenon known as “barocaloric effect.”

The discovery opens up interesting possibilities of using vulcanized natural rubber in advanced applications, especially in the area of “solid-state cooling.” This term refers to refrigeration systems (such as refrigerators or air conditioners) that are based on the use of solid state refrigerant materials to absorb the heat of the system to be cooled and transferred to an external environment. Conventional devices use fluids (gaseous and liquid states). The research was reported in an article recently published in ACS Macro Letters, a journal of the American Chemical Society publisher in the field of Polymer Science and the related matters, whose impact factor is 6,185.

“Since natural rubber heats up when pressed (more than 20 degrees above the initial temperature) and cools when the pressure is released (at least 20 degrees below the initial temperature), we believe it can be used as refrigerant material in a refrigerator,” explains Alexandre Magnus Gomes Carvalho, researcher at the Brazilian Synchrotron Light Laboratory (LNLS) and corresponding author of the article.

Read more at: https://www.sbpmat.org.br/en/tag/efeito-barocalorico/

Nature: the truth?

Nature journal has just published an editorial text [Nature 556, 5 (2018)] entitled “Nature: the truth” (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04024-4?utm_source=twt_nnc&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=naturenews&sf186201391=1).

There, we read a list of myths about Nature’s editorial processes and policies. Although we agree with most of them, we disagree with “Myth 4: The authorship of a paper — including country and institution — influences Nature’s decision on whether to referee or publish it. Untrue”. Based on several colleagues’ statements and our own experience, we think that “Myth 4” is not a myth. At this moment, we have a paper submitted to a journal from Nature group. We will wait for the end of this process to give more details about our experience on this “myth”.