The magnetocaloric effect of a coordination. polymeric material with a repeating unit of Gd(OH)CO3 has been studied experimentally using isothermal magnetization and heat capacity measurements. The maximum entropy change, -Delta S-m, reaches 66.4 J kg(-1) K-1 or 355 mJ cm(-3) K-1 for Delta H = 7 T and T = 1.8 K.
Density functional theory (DFT) calculations show weak and competing antiferromagnetic interactions between the metal centres.