Large Barocaloric Effect In Spin-Crossover Complex [Cri2(Depe)(2)]

Recently, spin-crossover compounds were pointed out as strong candidates for working as refrigerant materials due to their huge barocaloric effect. In this work, we report the giant isothermal entropy change (Delta S-T) and adiabatic temperature change (Delta T-ad) upon moderated pressure variation in the spin-crossover complex [CrI2(depe)(2)], where depe = 1,2-bis(diethylphosphino)ethane. This complex was investigated considering three main contributions for total entropy: configurational, magnetic, and phonon entropies, which were simulated using proper microscopic parameters. The high values of Delta S-T = 40 J kg(-1) K-1 and Delta T-ad = 10.6 K for Delta P = 2 kbar were obtained around low <-> high spin phase transition temperature (T-1/2). Besides, due to the large barocaloric shift parameters (delta T-1/2/delta P similar to 52 K/kbar), a giant refrigerant capacity (RC = 3583 J kg(-1)) was established for [CrI2(depe)(2)].