Effects of Nd-doping on the magnetic properties and magnetocaloric effects （MCEs） of NdxLa1-xFe11.5Al1.5 have been investigated. Substitution of Nd leads to a weakening of the antiferromagnetic （AFM） coupling and an enhancement of the ferromagnetic （FM） coupling. This in turn results in a complex magnetic behaviour for Nd0.2La0.8Fe11.5Al1.5 characterized by the occurrence of two phase transitions at ～188 K （PM AFM） and ～159 K （AFM-FM）. As a result, a table-like MCE （9 J/kg.K） is found in a wide temperature range （160-185 K） for a field change of 0-5T around the transition temperature, as evidenced by both the magnetic and calorimetric measurements. Based on the analysis of low-temperature heat capacity, it is found that the AFM-FM phase transition modifies the electron density significantly, and the major contribution to the entropy change comes from the electronic entropy change.
Magnetic properties and magnetocaloric effect of compound PrFe12B6 are investigated. The coexistence of hard phase PrFe12B6 and soft phase α-Fe causes interesting phenomena on the curves for the temperature dependence of magnetization. PrFe12B6 experiences a first order phase transition at the Curie temperature 206 K, accompanied by an obvious lattice contraction, which in turn results in a large magnetic entropy change. The Maxwell relation fails to give the correct information about magnetic entropy change due to the first order phase transition nature. The large magnetic entropy changes of PrFe12.3B4.7 obtained from heat capacity method are 11.7 and 16.2 J/kg.K for magnetic field changes of 0-2 T and 0-5 T respectively.
The magnetic properties and the magnetic entropy change AS have been investigated for Gd6Co1.67Si3 compounds with a second-order phase transition. The saturation moment at 5 K and the Curie temperature TC are 38.1μB and 298 K, respectively. The AS originates from a reversible second-order magnetic transition around TC and its value reaches 5.2 J/kg.K for a magnetic field change from 0 to 5T. The refrigerant capacity （RC） of Gd6Co1.67Si3 are calculated by using the methods given in Refs.[12] and [21], respectively, for a field change of 0 5T and its values are 310 and 440 J/kg, which is larger than those of some magnetocaloric materials with a first-order phase transition.
