Combined normal and inverse barocaloric effect materials
*Correspondence to:
Bing Li, Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IMR, CAS), Shenyang 110016, Liaoning, China.
E-mail: bingli@ imr.ac.cn
Thermo-X. 2026;2:202628. 10.70401/tx.2026.0029
Received: June 12, 2026Accepted: August 20, 2026Published: August 20, 2026
This manuscript is made available in its unedited form to allow early access to the
reported findings. Further editing will be completed before final publication. As
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Abstract
Barocaloric materials have attracted considerable attention as promising thermal-management alternatives to conventional vapour-compression technologies; however, virtually all reported systems exhibit only a single type of barocaloric effect (BCE), fundamentally constraining the functional versatility and accessible operating-temperature range of prospective devices. Here we report that two fluorinated alcohols, C9H6F14O2 (2OH) and C9H4F16O (1OH), harbour two mechanistically distinct phase transitions within a single material family: a solid-solid transition giving rise to a conventional normal BCE, and a solid-liquid transition yielding a rare inverse BCE. By systematically tuning the number of hydroxyl substituents (-OH), the transition temperatures of these two processes can be shifted by several tens of kelvin, enabling their natural alignment with distinct low- and high-temperature operating regimes. This intrinsic thermal property allows both heating and cooling functions to be realized within the same material system, solely through the exploitation of its barocaloric characteristics. Remarkably, 1OH exhibits exceptional pressure sensitivity during solid-liquid transition, reaching 0.34 K/MPa at 100 MPa. These findings establish fluorinated alcohols as a versatile and high-performance material platform, and open new avenues for the rational design of next-generation barocaloric energy conversion technologies.
Keywords
Barocaloric effect, inverse barocaloric effect, solid-liquid phase transition, pressure sensitivity, fluoroalcohol
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Li L, Wang H, Fan X, Wang Y, Zhang K, Li B. Combined normal and inverse barocaloric effect materials. Thermo-X. 2026;2:202628. https://doi.org/10.70401/tx.2026.0029
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Li L, Wang H, Fan X, Wang Y, Zhang K, Li B. Combined normal and inverse barocaloric effect materials. Thermo-X. 2026;2:202628. https://doi.org/10.70401/tx.2026.0029
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