An Elastocaloric Polymer with Ultra-High Solid-State Cooling via Defect Engineering.

ABSTRACT: Elastocaloric polymers, whose performance typically relies on phase transformation between amorphous chains and crystalline domains, offer a promising alternative to traditional refrigeration technologies. While engineering polymer-network architecture has shown the potential to boost elastocaloric performance, the role of topological defects remains unexplored despite their prevalence in real polymers. This study reports a defect-engineering approach in end-linked star polymers (ELSPs) that enables an adiabatic temperature change of up to 8.14 ± 1.76 °C at an ambient temperature above 65 °C, showing an enhancement of 39% compared to ELSPs with negligible defects. This defect-regulated solid-state cooling is attributed to two competing effects of dangling-chain defects on strain-induced cr

SUBMITTER: Yu Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12915172 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature