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TLDR:

Instead of liquid to gass cooling you can probably do solid to liquid cooling.

As an icebox does?

Does it involve a bag of ice and a fan? I think Walmart already has that market cornered.

I admit I only skimmed this, but it looks like they're taking advantage of colligative properties to induce the phase change... but in order to do that, they're causing ions to "flow" into a solid material so that it melts into a liquid.

I wonder how they make that happen; how, exactly, can they cause ions to flow into a solid?

[Not skeptical (necessarily), just curious]

How energy efficient is it as compared to the existing ones? Can we use it at homes? What are the other applications?

As I understand the post, by using controlled application of ions to promote phase change, and do so in a reversible fashion using solids to liquid, you could move heat with less need for things like a compressor. Depending on specific heats and heat of fusion could have some cool uses. Also not needing to allow for a pressure change (or at least as much as liquid refrigerants need) would be pretty helpful on a noise front

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But imagine instead of keep adding ice, The coolant goes back-and-forth between solid and liquid It would be a powered refrigerator instead of a passive refrigerator

I don’t know how it’s being done here but in a standard battery, there’s what’s called a salt bridge. Basically a paper towel soaked in salt water that allows ions to pass through without mixing the chemicals on both halves of the battery.

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