Pressure-freezing of dodecane: exploring the crystal structures, formation kinetics and phase diagrams for colossal barocaloric effects in -alkanes.

Barocaloric (BC) materials provide cheaper and more energy efficient alternatives to traditional refrigerants. Some liquid alkanes were recently shown to exhibit a colossal BC effect, matching the entropy changes in commercial vapour-liquid refrigerants. Dodecane was predicted to have the largest entropy change among the studied alkanes.