Billions of refrigerators and air conditioners keep the world cool — and quietly pump potent greenhouse gases into the atmosphere every time they leak. The refrigerants inside them have been a stubborn climate problem for decades, and the industry built around them has changed remarkably little in a century.
A small startup spun out of Cambridge thinks a class of waxy solid materials could change that. Barocal has just secured $10 million in fresh funding to push its pressure-sensitive plastic crystals closer to the market — and if it works, the implications for global energy use and emissions could be significant.
A $10 million bet on solid-state cooling
Barocal was founded by University of Cambridge materials physicist Xavier Moya, and the company spent seven years developing its core technology before this latest round. The fresh $10 million follows $4.5 million previously received from the European Innovation Council and a $1 million TERA-Award prize, pushing total funding past $15 million.
Seven years from materials research to commercial product is a long road. Promising laboratory results don’t automatically translate into engineered systems that are compact, affordable, and quiet enough for a kitchen or an office building — and that gap has swallowed more than a few promising technologies.
The new capital is expected to accelerate the engineering work required to reach market. Barocal has stated its goal of launching within approximately three years, a timeline that would mark a meaningful shift from research curiosity to real-world hardware.
Why today’s refrigeration is a climate problem
The refrigeration cycle most people rely on has barely changed in a century. A liquid refrigerant — typically a potent greenhouse gas — circulates through coils, evaporating to absorb heat inside the fridge, then getting compressed and condensed to release that heat outside. It works well enough, but the environmental costs are genuine and compounding.
When those refrigerants leak, the consequences are disproportionate. Many common refrigerants carry global warming potentials far exceeding that of carbon dioxide, so even small leaks hit harder than the volume suggests.
The compression cycle itself is energy-intensive, and every refrigerator and air conditioner running today draws electricity to power that compressor. Across households and commercial buildings worldwide, that adds up to enormous collective demand. Global cooling needs are expected to surge in coming decades as populations expand and temperatures rise — which means the environmental stakes of the status quo are only heading in one direction.
How plastic crystals absorb and release heat
Barocal’s refrigerant is a solid material — specifically, a class of plastic crystals whose molecules rotate freely when the material is at rest. In that state, the crystals can absorb heat across a temperature range spanning up to 50 °C (90 °F), which makes them a practical working medium for refrigeration.
Apply pressure, and the behavior shifts entirely. Molecular rotation stops, and the crystals release heat instead of absorbing it. This is the barocaloric effect — the physical principle the company’s name comes from.
Rather than circulating a gas-phase refrigerant, the system transfers heat by flowing water past the solid material toward a radiator, where the heat dissipates. No gas, no leak risk, no ozone-depleting compounds. The materials are also described as inexpensive and safe — two attributes that matter considerably when the goal is competing with an entrenched, low-cost technology at global scale.
From lab curiosity to commercial refrigerator
Barocal’s immediate target is commercial-grade HVAC and refrigeration systems rather than consumer appliances. That focus makes sense: commercial buyers are often more willing to adopt new technology when the efficiency and maintenance case is clear, and larger systems tolerate early-stage engineering iterations better than a product destined for someone’s kitchen.
The University of Cambridge had been researching barocaloric materials for 15 years before Barocal was spun out. That institutional history matters — the core science isn’t being validated from scratch, which is a meaningful head start.
Significant engineering challenges still lie ahead, though. Building a system that’s compact, quiet, cost-competitive, and efficient enough to displace incumbent technology requires a different skill set than materials research, and the company has acknowledged that substantial work remains beyond developing the material itself. On the commercial side, Barocal has already been trialing its technology with multiple international companies — a signal that industry interest is real, even if full deployment remains some way off.
A crowded but promising field
Barocal isn’t working in isolation. Several research groups around the world are pursuing solid-state cooling approaches, including a Harvard team active in the space as far back as 2022. At this stage, competition is arguably a healthy indicator — it reflects broad scientific confidence that the underlying physics can be made to work at scale.
The race to commercialization is real, however. Whichever team brings a cost-competitive, reliable product to market first will hold a significant advantage in a sector that’s both enormous and long overdue for disruption.
The long-term prize is substantial. If solid-state cooling reaches mass adoption, the potential reductions in global cooling energy demand — and the elimination of greenhouse-gas refrigerants from billions of new units — would represent one of the more consequential materials advances of the coming decades. Whether Barocal crosses that finish line first, or simply helps prove the path is viable, the next three years will be worth watching closely.
Carlos is an engineer with strong expertise in technical and industrial topics. He previously worked at international companies such as Siemens and speaks Spanish, German, English, and Italian.
