TechCrunch Desktop Logo TechCrunch Mobile Logo LatestStartupsVentureAppleSecurityAIAppsDisrupt 2026 EventsPodcastsNewsletters SearchSubmit Site Search Toggle Mega Menu Toggle Topics Latest AI Amazon Apps Biotech & Health Climate Cloud Computing Commerce Crypto Enterprise EVs Fintech Fundraising Gadgets Gaming Google Government & Policy Hardware Instagram Layoffs Media & Entertainment Meta Microsoft Privacy Robotics Security Social Space Startups TikTok Transportation Venture More from TechCrunch Staff Events Startup Battlefield StrictlyVC Newsletters Podcasts Videos Partner Content TechCrunch Brand Studio Contact Us Image Credits:SolStock (opens in a new window) / Climate Barocal can cool your food and drink by squeezing a hunk of plastic crystals Tim De Chant 6:00 AM PDT · May 4, 2026 Refrigerators today run on the same basic technology as they did more than 100 years ago. You’d think we could have come up with something better by now. And we have, but nothing has been able to dethrone cheap, reliable vapor compression — the process that’s keeping your milk cold today.
One startup hopes to change that. Barocal has developed an entirely new way of heating and cooling using nothing but an inexpensive solid material. Early prototypes are already as effective as existing refrigerator compressors, and the technology promises to use significantly less energy.
Oh, and there’s no risk of leaking climate-warming gases, something that has plagued vapor compression. To prepare the technology for market, Barocal has raised a $10 million seed round, the startup exclusively told TechCrunch. Investors in the round included World Fund, Breakthrough Energy Discovery, Cambridge Enterprise Ventures, and IP Group.
Barocal’s core technology stems from research performed by Xavier Moya, the startup’s founder. He traces it back to his youth in Spain, where he would spend hours studying in a small, hot room. As a professor of materials physics at the University of Cambridge, he focused on refrigerants of all kinds, though he became particularly fascinated by solid materials that could capture and release heat simply by squeezing and stretching them.
In one of his favorite demonstrations, he asks people to take a deflated balloon, hold it to their lips, and repeatedly stretch and relax it. And then if you wait, when you let it go, it feels cold,” he said. var playerInstance_jwplayer_6a7d728d82b5e = jwplayer( "jwplayer_6a7d728d82b5e" ); playerInstance_jwplayer_6a7d728d82b5e.setup(); That same principle applies to the class of materials Barocal has developed, which is related to an organic material widely used in a range of industries, from plastics to paints. Normally, the molecules inside the material rotate freely.
But when they’re compressed, the molecules stop rotating. Since heat, at its most basic level, is the movement of atoms and molecules, reducing that movement causes the material to give off heat. Removing the pressure allows the materials to absorb heat.
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