In recent days, the interest toward the development of
multicaloric
materials for cooling application is increasing, whereas multiferroic
materials would be the suitable alternative to the conventional refrigerants.
To explore them, the poly(methyl methacrylate)/poly(vinylidenefluoride-co-hexafluoropropylene) (PMMA/PVDF-HFP) blend and PMMA/PVDF-HFP/Zn0.5Cu0.5Fe2O4 flexible multiferroic
nanocomposite films were fabricated by the solution casting method.
The structural analyses prove that the strong interfacial interaction
between the PMMA/PVDF-HFP blend and the Zn0.5Cu0.5Fe2O4 (ZCF) through hydroxyl (−OH) and
carbonyl group bonding with PVDF-HFP enhanced the thermal stability
and suppressed the electroactive β phase from 67 to 62%. Experimental
results show that 10 wt % of superparamagnetic ZCF nanoparticles with
a particle size of 6.8 nm induced both the magnetocaloric and magnetoelectric
effects in a nonmagnetic PMMA/PVDF-HFP ferroelectric matrix at room
temperature. A set of isothermal magnetization curves were recorded
in the magnetic field strength of 0–40 kOe and a temperature
range of 2–400 K. The maximum magnetic entropy changes (ΔS
M) of −0.69 J·kg–1 K–1 of ZCF nanoparticles and −0.094 J·kg–1 K–1 of PMMA/PVDF-HFP/ZCF nanocomposites
showed an interesting table-like flat variation in the temperature
range of 100–400 K as a function of the magnetic field. The
samples display a large temperature span with a relative cooling power
of 293 and 40 J·kg–1 for ZCF and PMMA/PVDF-HFP/ZCF,
respectively. The magnetoelectric effect of the PMMA/PVDF-HFP/ZCF
composite was proved, but it generated only 1.42 mV/m·Oe in the
applied field of 5 kOe. Hence, the entropy change of the present nanocomposite
was only due to the magnetocaloric effect, where the magnetoelectric
cross-coupling coefficient was negligible. The multicaloric effect
could be established if the nanocomposite showed a larger magnetoelectric
cross-coupling in addition to the magnetocaloric effect. This approach
provides the research findings in functional multiferroic polymer
nanocomposites for miniaturized cooling devices.