Recognition
Seal of Excellence, EIC Accelerator
Our proposal was judged by independent European Innovation Council experts to deserve funding.
2nd prize, EIT InnoEnergy category
EIT Jumpstarter Grand Final 2022, Kraków
Why change
Vapor compression has served refrigeration for more than a century. Manufacturers and operators now face pressure on three fronts at once.
The revised EU F-gas Regulation (EU) 2024/573 phases out hydrofluorocarbons step by step towards 2050. Every refrigerant change means redesign, requalification and new service skills.
Propane is flammable and carbon dioxide runs at high pressure. Both are workable, but they add charge limits, safety measures and cost.
Refrigeration runs around the clock in supermarkets, and cooling is a major energy load in data centers. Higher efficiency lowers running costs and emissions for your customers.
Magnetic refrigeration addresses all three: no refrigerant gas, no flammable or high-pressure circuit, and higher energy efficiency as the design goal.
Technology
Some materials warm up when they are magnetized and cool down when the magnetic field is removed. This is the magnetocaloric effect. We use it in a continuous cycle, with water carrying the heat in and out.
The material sits in a porous bed called an active magnetic regenerator. Repeating the cycle continuously builds a temperature span far larger than a single magnetization step could give.
The magnetocaloric material enters the magnetic field and warms up.
Water flows through the warm material towards the hot side and carries the heat away.
The material leaves the field and cools below its starting temperature.
Water flows back through the cold material and delivers cooling to the cold side.
Magnetocaloric regenerator
Porous beds of solid magnetocaloric material: the refrigerant of the system.
Permanent magnets
Create the field without consuming electricity. A motor provides the relative motion between magnet and regenerator.
Water circuit
A pump and valves move water through the regenerator in alternating directions.
Heat exchangers
Deliver cooling to the cabinet or data center and reject heat to the surroundings.
Applications
We focus on two markets where efficiency matters and where our technology fits existing products and infrastructure.
Commercial refrigeration
Our cooling unit is designed to take the place of the vapor compression system inside a partner's existing display cabinets and refrigerated equipment. The cabinet, display, shelving and form factor stay as they are.
Inside the same cabinet
Today
With EFC Mag
Same cabinet body, display and shelving. Only the cooling unit changes.
Data centers
A vapor compression chiller needs a refrigerant circuit and a separate water circuit, with a heat exchanger between them. In our system, water is already the heat transfer fluid inside the magnetic refrigerator, so the same water can circulate through the data center.
Cooling the same server racks
Today
With EFC Mag
Same server racks. One water loop replaces the refrigerant circuit and the intermediate heat exchanger.
Partner with us
We are looking for companies that want to evaluate an alternative to vapor compression early, and bring it to their market together with us.
About
EFC Mag was founded to bring magnetic refrigeration out of the laboratory and into commercial cooling products.
Our team brings many years of experience in magnetocaloric research and prototype development, and works closely with industry to turn that knowledge into products partners can build and sell.