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Rodrigo Pacher Fernandes developed part of his Master course with us. As student of the EMMS (European Master in Material Science), he dealt with the synthesis, chemical, structural and magnetic characterization of new magnetocaloric materials, with special focus on its magnetocaloric potential.

Motivated by the marked difference in magnetic behaviour of the compounds PrNi5 and PrCo5, the system Pr(Ni,Co)5 was studied. The Curie temperature (Tc) of the system is very sensible to the Ni/Co ratio, allowing the tayloring of this important property for magnetocaloric materials.

The work comprised the synthesis of the Pr(Ni,Co) system by arc melt with the posterior heat treatment required to achieve the correct single phase material. The samples were then characterized with x-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive x-rays (EDX). The magnetic properties were done at the vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) and the magnetocaloric properties were derived from this data.

Find here the PDF of his project work.

Supervisor: Vitor Amaral

Co-supervisor: Mario Reis