New Energy Department-supported technologies under development at Ames National Laboratory could make refrigerators a substantially more energy efficient appliance.

AMES, Iowa -- At a launch meeting held last week at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory, the scientists and engineers of CaloriCoolTM, a materials research consortium, began making the to-do list for an ambitious goal: improving the energy-efficiency of refrigeration technology by 20 to 30 percent within a decade through the use of caloric materials for cooling. 

As part of the Administration's goal to accelerate the production of advanced energy materials while reducing production time and cost, the scientists developing CaloriCoolTM and other novel advanced materials are facing some of the most challenging questions in clean energy manufacturing today. 

Read more about the Energy Materials Network and the public-private consortia that are putting it on the map.