00:00Looking for a process safer for the planet, scientists have found a new way to lower temperatures with the potential
00:06to replace existing methods of chilling things.
00:10It's called ionocaloric cooling.
00:12Science Alert says the method takes advantage of the way energy is stored or released when a material changes phase,
00:19like when solid ice turns to liquid water.
00:22The way it's explained is that when you raise the temperature of a block of ice, it'll melt.
00:26But what we might not see so easily is that melting absorbs heat from its surroundings, effectively cooling it.
00:33So scientists from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California, Berkeley, figured out that one way to
00:40force ice to melt without needing to turn up the heat is to add a few charged particles or ions.
00:46The same way salt is used to prevent ice from forming.
00:49Are you starting to see it?
00:50The method could be used for heating and for cooling, and it could revolutionize and even improve the efficiency of
00:56refrigerants in use today.
00:58The next step is getting the technology out of the lab and into practical systems that can be used commercially
01:04and that scale up without any issues.
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