APCTP–ASEAN Workshop on Advanced Materials Science and Nanotechnology (AMSN08) IOP Publishing Journal of Physics: Conference Series 187 (2009) 012067 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/187/1/012067 The existence of large magnetocaloric effect at low field variation and the anti-corrosion ability of Fe-rich alloy with Cr substituted for Fe Duong Thi Hong Gam, Nguyen Hoang Hai, Le Van Vu, Nguyen Hoang Luong and Nguyen Chau Center for Materials Science, University of Science, Vietnam National University, 334 Nguyen Trai, Hanoi, Vietnam E-mail: gamcms@gmail.com Abstract The influence of Cr substituted for Fe in Fe78-xCrxSi4Nb5B12Ag1 ribbons on the crystallization and magnetic properties including the magnetocaloric effect have been investigated DSC measurements showed that the crystallization temperature and the crystallization activation energy increased with Cr content Thermomagnetic curves measured in low applied field indicated that there is a sharp ferromagnetic-paramagnetic phase transition at Curie temperature, TC, of the amorphous phase In addition, substitution of Cr for Fe led to approximate linear decrease of TC with Cr content, namely from 450K to 280K for x = and x = 8, respectively From a series of the isothermal magnetization curves M(H) measured at different temperatures, magnetic entropy change ΔSm was determined at magnetic field variations of 13.5, 10.0 and 5.0 kOe Maximum value of ΔSm (occurred near TC) decreased with increasing Cr content and these values established are quite large at low field variation Namely, at moderate low magnetic field variation of 5.0 kOe, |ΔSm|max is of 4.4 and 1.9 J/kg.K for x = and x = 8, respectively Our studied alloys system could be considered as the best magnetocaloric material candidates for magnetic refrigeration because of colossal magnetic entropy change at low field variation and working temperature could be controlled in large region by substitution effect The anti-corrosion ability of alloys was also examined Keywords: Magnetocaloric effect, anti-corrosion, amorphous ribbons Introduction Magnetic refrigeration recently is a current topic in solid state physics/materials science and is of interest to physicists, materials scientists, and electrical and/or electric engineers Magnetic cooling using magnetocaloric effect (MCE) has much interest of commercial applications in magnetic refrigeration as well as of fundamental research Magnetic refrigeration using solid substances offers a lot of advantages over conventional gas compression refrigeration, namely: (i) high thermodynamic efficiency due to reversibility of the MCE (e.g the efficiency of magnetic refrigeration can be reached up to 60% of a Carnot cycle, whereas the efficiency is only 5–10% for conventional vapour compression refrigeration), (ii) high energy densities and more compact devices because the working medium is a solid rather than a gas, (iii) natural recovery of magnetic work during the cycle, c 2009 IOP Publishing Ltd APCTP–ASEAN Workshop on Advanced Materials Science and Nanotechnology (AMSN08) IOP Publishing Journal of Physics: Conference Series 187 (2009) 012067 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/187/1/012067 (iv) usage of common liquids as heat transfer fluids (e.g water, water-alcohol solution, air, or helium gas) with no ozone - depleting and/or global - warning effects, (v) lower cost as using inexpensive magnet systems (e.g permanent magnets), (vi) environmental protection because it eliminate the chloroflouro-carbons present in hightemperature gas-cycle systems Magnetic refrigeration has many potential applications in energy intensive industrial and commercial refrigerator systems, such as large–scale air conditioners, heat pumps, supermarket refrigeration units, waste separation, chemical processing, gas liquefaction, liquor distilling, sugar refining, grain drying etc MCE, or adiabatic temperature change which is detected as the heating or cooling of magnetic materials due to a varying magnetic field, was originally discovered in iron by Warburg [1] When an external magnetic field is applied to a material, the magnetic spins in the material attempt to align with the magnetic field, thereby reducing the magnetic entropy of the spin system If this process is performed adiabatically, the reduction of the spin entropy is offset by an increase in lattice entropy, and the temperature of the sample will rise If the magnetic field is subsequently removed, the temperature of sample will reduce This warning and cooling is response to the application and removal of an external magnetic field is called MCE Therefore the MCE is intrinsic to all magnetic materials As we well know, the magnetic entropy change, ΔS m , and the adiabatic temperature change, ΔTad , are correlated with the magnetization, the magnetic field strength, the heat capacity and the working temperature by the fundamental Maxwell’s relations [2]: H max ΔS m (T , H ) = ∫ ⎛ ∂M (T , H ) ⎞ ⎜ ⎟ dH , ∂T ⎝ ⎠H (1) ⎛ T ⎞⎛ ∂M (T , H ) ⎞ ⎜⎜ ⎟⎟⎜ ⎟ dH , ∂T ⎠H ⎝ C (T , H ) ⎠⎝ (2) and H max ΔTad (T , ΔH ) = − ∫ where Hmax is the final applied magnetic field Equations (1) and (2) have a fundamental importance on the understanding of the behaviour of the MCE in solid and serve as a guide for the search of new materials with a large MCE [3] Conventional magnetic refrigerants fall into two categories: first, the paramagnetic salts used to obtain mK, and second, ferromagnetic materials working in the vicinity of their ordering temperature Recently, there has been particular interest in extending the magnetic refrigeration technique to room temperature region because of the desire to eliminate the chlorofluorocarbons presented in high-temperature gas-cycle systems (environmental concerns) as well as potential impact of energy savings Therefore materials with large MCE are needed to improve energy efficiency The prototype material for the room temperature range is the lanthanide metal Gd which orders ferromagnetically at 294K Its MCE has been studied independently by many authors and the ΔTad values at TC are 6, 12, 16 and 20K for ΔH = 2, 5, 7.5 and 10 T, respectively (see, for example [4]) A series of Gd5(SixGe1-x)4 alloys was reported [5, 6] to display MCE at least two times larger than that of Gd near room temperature and between to 10 times larger than that of the best (at that time) magnetocaloric materials in the low and intermediate temperature regions Many other materials have been studied with respect to their magnetocaloric properties [7] The compounds La(Fe,Si)13 and La(Fe,Al)13 [8], MnFeP1-xAsx [9], MnAs1-xSbx [10] are suggested to be the potential candidates for room temperature magnetic refrigerators Another class of materials also displaying the large MCE (comparable to Gd) is based on perovskite [11-15] Especially, for the first time we are examined the positive magnetic entropy change in manganite with charge-ordering [16] Recently, the research group at Center for Materials of Science, Vietnam National University, Hanoi have examined the influence of P substituted for B [17], Ag, Zn and Au for Cu [18-20], Co, Mn, Cr and Nb for Fe [21-24] in Finemet on the crystallization and properties of materials We have APCTP–ASEAN Workshop on Advanced Materials Science and Nanotechnology (AMSN08) IOP Publishing Journal of Physics: Conference Series 187 (2009) 012067 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/187/1/012067 discovered giant magnetocaloric effect in a series of amorphous alloys typical Finemet (Fe73.5Si13.5B9Nb3Cu1) and like-Finemet [25, 26] The maximum magnetic entropy change reached quite large value comparing within world studies Namely, this value is of 13.9 J/kg.K, 11.2 J/kg.K in reference [25] and 9.8 J/kg.K in reference [27] at moderate low field change (1.35 T) and occurs at a temperature that is higher than room temperature Also, the working temperature can be easily controlled by substitution effect However, this temperature is rather high and the value of magnetic entropy change strongly decreases when TC reaches around room temperature In this report, we present the results of large MCE at a low field variation and anti-corrosion ability in Fe-rich alloys: Fe78-xCrxSi4Nb5B12Ag1 Experimental The soft magnetic ribbons Fe78-xCrxSi4Nb5B12Ag1 (x = - 8) have been prepared by rapid quenching technique on a single copper wheel The linear speed of the wheel for all ribbons was 30 m/s The structure of the samples was examined by X-ray diffractometer D5005 Bruker The thermal transition analysis was studied by a differential scanning calorimeter SDT 2960 TA Instruments The ribbons were annealed in vacuum The thermomagnetic curves of as-cast ribbons were measured by vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) DMS 880 Digital Measurement System and the magnetic properties of studied samples were determined by using Permagraph AMH-401 A, Walker In order to examine the chemical anti-corrosion, we chose the samples with different Cr content having the same thickness and width (the same area) These samples are soaked in a solution of diluted brine (concentration c = 5‰) and after days, they are drawn out and dried The mass depression is determined by the balance whose accuracy is 10-5 g Results and discussion The XRD patterns of as-cast samples showed one broad peak centered at approximately 2θ = 45o which appears to be typical for an amorphous phase o 625 C -9.6 Ea1 = 2.03 eV o 622 C o 554 C o 786 C o o 781 C o -10.2 o 610 C o 40 C/min o 528 C o 515 C o 593 C 535 C -9.9 o 50 C/min ln(β/Tp) Heat flow (a.u) o 612 C 546 C o 771 C o 765 C o 30 C/min -10.5 -10.8 o 20 C/min o 794 C -11.1 o 10 C/min 300 450 600 750 900 -13.8 o T ( C) -13.6 -13.4 -13.2 -1/(kBT p) Figure Kissinger plot for determination of Figure DSC curves of as-cast ribbon with crystallization activation energy of the first peak x =0 measured with heating rate from 10 to for the sample with x =0 50oC/min DSC measurement on as-cast amorphous ribbons was performed with heating rate from 10 to 50oC/min in Ar atmosphere Figure shows DSC curves for the sample with x = as an example There are three separated exothermal peaks Tp1, Tp2 and Tp3 on DSC curves The first peak corresponds the formation of α-Fe(Si) phase and partial FeCr phase (Tp1) On a crystallographic level, α-Fe(Si) and FeCr phases are the same structure of bcc, so on the XRD patterns and DSC curves, three phases are close Because of the resolution of device is not high, the phase splitting is not observed The second and third peaks on DSC curves ascribe to the precipitation of boride phases (Tp2 and Tp3) depending on the Cr content substituted for Fe APCTP–ASEAN Workshop on Advanced Materials Science and Nanotechnology (AMSN08) IOP Publishing Journal of Physics: Conference Series 187 (2009) 012067 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/187/1/012067 Based on DSC patterns measured at different heating rates and Kissinger plots (figures and 2), we have evaluated the crystallization activation energy Ea1 of the first peak [28] The formation of FeCr phase with laminar structure [27] makes the exothermal peaks (Tp1, Tp2 and Tp3) and the crystallization activation energy increase with the Cr content due to the laminar structure have the shape magnetic anisotropy For the first time, Leu and Chin [29] have pointed out the use of DTA apparatus for estimating the crystallization volume fraction The as-cast ribbons have been annealed from 505 to 545oC (depending on Cr content) for 90 minutes Using Leu and Chin expression, we derive the crystallization volume fraction of the α-Fe(Si) phase and the results indicate to be 82% From the X-ray analysis, we can determine the average grain size of α-Fe(Si) particles formed after annealing according to the Sherrer expression [30] and the lattice constant using Bragg’s diffraction The results are shown in figure and table The grain size decreases while the lattice constant slightly increases with increasing Cr content There is due to that the higher Cr content, the higher crystallization activation energy that leads to hard crystallization Moreover, the radius of Fe ion is less than that of Cr ion, therefore the higher Cr content leads to the lattice deformation and make increasing the lattice constant We know that the grain size and the crystallization phase depend on the annealing regime (annealing temperature and keeping time) The grain size depends majorly on annealing temperature, so the samples with higher Cr content annealed at the higher temperature, and the average grain size increases 0.300 25 a D 0.299 24 23 0.297 22 0.296 0.295 21 0.294 20 0.293 19 x D (nm) a (nm) 0.298 Figure Dependence of the average grain size (D) and the lattice constant (a) on Cr concentration Because of nanosize and appropriate volume fraction of α-Fe(Si) phase, the soft magnetic properties of annealed sample have been remarkably improved compared to those of as-cast samples (figure and table 1) However, the soft magnetic properties of the sample with x = is worse than those of the sample with x = due to ferromagnetic dilution and the formation of FeCr phase Table Several characteristics of the ribbons with x = and Sample Tp1 (oC) Ea1 (eV) a (nm) D (nm) x=0 528 2.03 0.2941 x=7 580 2.70 0.2963 HC (Oe) μmax as-spun annealed as-spun annealed 25.1 0.13 0.01 3,500 28,000 20.7 0.25 0.08 2,100 20,100 APCTP–ASEAN Workshop on Advanced Materials Science and Nanotechnology (AMSN08) IOP Publishing Journal of Physics: Conference Series 187 (2009) 012067 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/187/1/012067 80 550 400 500 350 450 ΔT (K) 60 600 TC ΔT TC (K) 450 x=7 x=0 as-cast annealed 400 300 M (emu/g) B (kG) -2 350 250 40 x ΔT 20 -4 -6 -8 -4 -2 300 450 H (Oe) 600 750 900 T (K) Figure Thermomagnetic curves of the samples with x = and (Insert is the dependence of TC and ΔT on Cr content) Figure Hysteresis loops of the sample with x = Figure shows the thermomagnetic curves M(T) of the ribbon with x = and x = measured in low field of 20 Oe We can see that when the temperature increases, the magnetization is abruptly reduced at Curie temperature TC of amorphous phase With further increasing temperature up to region of onset of crystallization, the α-Fe(Si) crystallites start to be formed leading to the increase in magnetization From M(T) curves, we define ΔT = Tonset – TC as the stabilizing temperature region of amorphous phase, in which no phase transition is detected (figure 5) TC and ΔT were determined for all samples and collected in table Insert in figure is the dependence of TC and ΔT of the samples versus Cr content substituted for Fe The results show that TC significantly decreased while ΔT increased with increasing Cr content It is clearly seen that we can control the working temperature of the ribbons by substitution effect and Cr plays the role of stabilizing amorphous structure The calculation of the magnetic entropy change, ΔSm, associated with second-order phase transition was performed using the isothermal magnetization curves Figure shows the magnetization versus applied field up to 13.5 kOe at various temperatures of samples with x = (figure 6a) and x = (figure 6b) In our experiments, the changing rate of applied field is slow enough to get isothermal M-H curves In fact, ΔSm is often evaluated by some numerical approximation methods One way of approximation is to directly use the measurements of the M(T) curve under different magnetic field In the case of small discrete field intervals, ΔSm can be approximately determined from equation (1) as ⎡⎛ ∂M ⎞ ⎛ ∂M ⎞ ⎤ ΔS m = ∑ ⎢⎜ ⎟ +⎜ ⎟ ⎥ × × ΔH i ⎣⎢⎝ ∂T ⎠ H i ⎝ ∂T ⎠ H i +1 ⎦⎥ (3) ⎛ ∂M ⎞ ⎟ is the experimental value obtained from M(T) curve in magnetic field Hi ⎝ ∂T ⎠ H i where ⎜ Another method is to use isothermal magnetization measurements In the case of magnetization measurements at small discrete field and temperature interval, ΔSm can be approximately determined from equation (1) by ΔSm = ∑ M i − M i +1 ΔH i Ti +1 − Ti (4) where Mi and Mi+1 are the experimental values of the magnetization at Ti and Ti+1, respectively, under an applied magnetic field of Hi APCTP–ASEAN Workshop on Advanced Materials Science and Nanotechnology (AMSN08) IOP Publishing Journal of Physics: Conference Series 187 (2009) 012067 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/187/1/012067 70 405 K 265 K 60 60 50 50 300 K M (emu/g) M (emu/g) 450 K 40 455 K 30 20 10 30 335 K 20 10 495 K (a) 0 10 12 305 K 40 (b) 0 14 H (kOe) 10 12 14 H (kOe) (a) (b) Figure Magnetization as a function of applied field at different temperatures for the samples with x=0 (a) and x=7 (b) Table Curie temperature (TC), stabilizing temperature region (ΔT) and the maximum value of magnetic entropy change (|ΔSm|max) of the studied samples Sample x=0 x=1 x=2 x=3 x=4 x=5 x=6 x=7 x=8 TC (K) 450 425 400 375 355 330 310 300 280 ΔT (K) 340 370 400 435 465 500 530 560 590 ΔH = 13.5 5.3 4.9 4.4 4.0 3.7 3.5 3.2 3.1 2.8 ΔH = 10 4.9 4.6 4.2 3.8 3.4 3.2 2.6 2.5 2.1 ΔH = 4.4 4.1 3.9 3.3 3.0 2.8 2.2 2.1 1.9 6.0 x x x x x x x x x |ΔSm| (J/kg.K) 4.5 3.0 = = = = = = = = = 3.5 13.5 kOe 10 kOe kOe kOe 3.0 |ΔSm| (J/kg.K) |ΔSm|max (J/kg.K) 1.5 2.5 2.0 1.5 1.0 0.5 0.0 250 300 350 400 450 0.0 500 270 T (K) 280 290 300 310 320 330 T (K) Figure Magnetic entropy change of the studied Figure Magnetic entropy change of the samples with magnetic field variation of sample with x =7 as a function of temperature in different field variations 13.5 kOe Figure presents the temperature dependence of ΔSm of the studied samples It can be seen that the maximum value of |ΔSm| occurs around TC of amorphous phase and decreases with increasing Cr content Namely, |ΔSm| is of 5.3 J/kg.K and 2.8 J/kg.K measured in 13.5 kOe magnetic field variation for x = and 8, respectively ΔSm has been also determined at lower field variation of 10 and kOe and figure shows the results for the ribbon with x = as an example It is interesting that the value of APCTP–ASEAN Workshop on Advanced Materials Science and Nanotechnology (AMSN08) IOP Publishing Journal of Physics: Conference Series 187 (2009) 012067 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/187/1/012067 |ΔSm|max reached the large value at the low field variation (see table 2) This can be only be explained in that our materials are ultrasoft magnetic materials To our knowledge, these values of |ΔSm|max at magnetic field variation of 10kOe and 5kOe of the studied samples are the largest values that have not been reported so far Especially, at magnetic field variation of kOe, the value of |ΔSm|max of the samples is larger than J/kg.K Namely, |ΔSm|max is of 1.4 J/kg.K and 1.0 J/kg.K for x = and 7, respectively This has an important meaning for application that with the low magnetic field, the magnetic refrigerators only use a permanent magnet (AlNiCo, Nd2Fe14B) for a source of magnetic field From above mentioned results we could say that our studied materials have giant magnetocaloric effect working at a large temperature region (from under room temperature (280K) to high temperature (450K) by moderate low magnetic field variation, thereby they are the best refrigeration materials at the present time The chemical anti-corrosion of Cr was also studied The results show that the mass of the samples without Cr or with less Cr content (x = 0÷2), strongly decreases with time when they are soaked in the solution of diluted brine (concentration c = 5‰), while the mass of the samples with higher Cr content is almost constant The results are shown in figure This can be only explained due to the anticorrosion ability of Cr So, the sample containing Cr can work in the breaking environments (seawater, acid, alkali…) 1.0 m/mo(%) 0.8 0.6 0.4 x=0 x=2 x=4 x=6 x=8 0.2 0.0 10 20 30 40 50 Figure Mass of the studied samples after time of soak (mo is primary mass) 60 t (days) Conclusions Magnetic ribbons of composition Fe78-xCrxSi4Nb5B12Ag1 are prepared by rapid quenching technology with amorphous structure Cr substitution makes increasing crystallization temperature of α-Fe(Si) phase and crystallization activation energy, shifting the Curie temperature of amorphous phase to room temperature region as well as stabilizing amorphous structure of samples The large magnetocaloric effect (GMCE) has been established in all studied samples at low field variation This has an important meaning for application with the low magnetic field, for example when the magnetic refrigerators only use a permanent magnet (AlNiCo, Nd2Fe14B) for a source of magnetic field It is convinced that the studied samples have combined a number of advantages of magnetocaloric materials Therefore they are the best materials working for active magnetic refrigeration at large temperature range from room to high temperature region After appropriate annealing, materials become nanocomposites with ultrasoft magnetic properties The existence of Cr increases the chemical anti-corrosion ability of the samples and these samples can be used in the breaking environments (seawater, acid, alkali…) References [1] Warburg E 1981 Ann Phys 13 141 APCTP–ASEAN Workshop on Advanced Materials Science and Nanotechnology (AMSN08) IOP Publishing Journal of Physics: Conference Series 187 (2009) 012067 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/187/1/012067 [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] Morrish A H 1963 The principles of magnetic (New York: Winley) chapter Pecharsky V K, Gschneidner J K A 1999 J Magn Magn Mater 200 44 Dankov S Y, Tishin A M, Pecharsky V K, Gschneidner Jr K A 1998 Phys Rev B 57 3478 Pecharsky V K, Gschneidner Jr K A 1997 J Magn Mag Mater 167 L179 Gschneidner Jr K A, Pecharsky V K 1999 J Appl Phys 85 5365 Tishin A M, Spickin Y I, Magnetocaloric effect and its application 2003 IOP Bristol Philadelphia Series in Condensed Matter Physcis Chen Y F, Wang F, Shen B G, Sun J R, Wang G J, Hu F X, Cheng Z H, Zhu T 2003 J Appl Phys 93 6981 Tegus O, Bruck E, Buschow K H J, de Boer F R 2002 Nature 415 6868 Wada H, Asano T 2005 J Magn Magn Mater 290-291 703 Phan M H, Phan T 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Advanced Technologies for Communications ATC 2008 and REV’08 Hoa N Q, Gam D T H, The N D, Chau N, Son D V, Yu S C 2007 Phys Stat Sol (a) 204 4113 Chau N, The N D, Huu C X 2004 Proceeding of the 2nd International Workshop on Nanophysics and Nanotechnology (IWONN’04) (Hanoi Vietnam October 22-23) p 51 Chau N, Yu S C, Huu C X, Hoa N Q, The N D, Tho N D 2007 Mater Sci Eng A.449-451 360 Chau N, Thanh P Q, Hoa N Q, The N D 2006 J Magn Magn Mater 304 36 Gam D T H, The N D, Hai N H, Chau N, Hoa N Q, Mahmud Md S 2008 J Korean Phys Soc 52 1423 Leu M S, Chin T S 1999 MRS Symp Proc 577 557 Cullity B D 2nd Edition 1978 Element of X-ray Diffraction Addison – Wesley Reading MA 10 Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Vietnam National Fundamental Research Program (Project 406506) for financial support ... display MCE at least two times larger than that of Gd near room temperature and between to 10 times larger than that of the best (at that time) magnetocaloric materials in the low and intermediate temperature... field of 20 Oe We can see that when the temperature increases, the magnetization is abruptly reduced at Curie temperature TC of amorphous phase With further increasing temperature up to region of. .. field variation of 10kOe and 5kOe of the studied samples are the largest values that have not been reported so far Especially, at magnetic field variation of kOe, the value of |ΔSm|max of the samples