Magnetic and magnetocaloric properties of (Gd,Nd)5Si4 compounds

•Bulk polycrystalline (Gd, Nd)5Si4 compounds were studied and the influence of Gd/Nd concentration determined.•Evidence of the alignment between rare earth ions sublattices though magnetic characterization.•Magnetocaloric properties were assessed via the isothermal entropy change and the refrigerant capacity evaluated. Since the discovery of the giant magnetocaloric effect in the compound Gd5Si2Ge2, rare earth based intermetallics of the form R5(Si,Ge)4 have been largely investigated in their structural and magnetic properties. From the parent compounds Gd5Si4 and Nd5Si4, the present paper reports the magnetic and magnetocaloric properties of the series Gd5-xNdxSi4. Our results indicate that the magnetic moments of the Gd and Nd sublattices are antiparallel, where the moment of each sublattice has almost the same magnitude near x=4. The antiparallel alignment of the sublattices is detrimental to the magnetocaloric properties of the samples. The end members of the series present larger entropy changes, while for the compound x=4 such quantity is much lower when compared to all other samples.