An investigation of thermoelectric cooling devices for small-scale space conditioning applications in buildings

Abstract

SUMMARYThis paper presents the study of a thermoelectric cooler (TEC) designed for small-scale space conditioning applications in buildings. A theoretical study was undertaken to find the optimum operating conditions, which were then applied in the laboratory testing work. A TEC unit was assembled and tested under laboratory conditions. Eight pieces of UltraTEC were shown to generate up to 220 W of cooling with a COP of 0.46 under the input current of 4.8 A for each module. Thermo-economical analysis was carried out and results showed that a system with PV panel can compete with an equivalent system without a PV panel when PV costs fall down to or lower than £1.25 per Watt. For the cases without a PV panel, the system with a high level of TEC power input delivered a better performance in terms of the average cooling energy price than that system with a low level of TEC power input after critical interest rate (currently 4%).

Performance optimization of transcritical CO2refrigeration cycle with thermoelectric subcooler

“…High-performance bismuth-telluride compound has been taken as TE materials having the following thermoelectric properties measured at 298 K [13]: α p = + 221 μV/K, α n = − 223 μV/K, ρ p = 8.71 μΩm, ρ n = 8.23 μΩm, k p = 1.48W/mK, and k n = 1.65W/mK, which leads to the figure of merit value of 0.0037. However, both the COPs, COP of the TE subcooler and COP of the CO 2 cycle, increase and then decrease and give maximum value, which confirms the previous findings [12,14,15] that there exists an optimum current supply yielding maximum COP of the TE subcooler if T H , T C , and the TE material are fixed. In the evaporator, the secondary fluid temperature (T e ) is assumed to be 5°C above the evaporator temperature and unless otherwise stated, the ambient temperature is assumed to be 30°C.…”

A review on the performance of photovoltaic/thermoelectric hybrid generators

“…Their results show a higher electrical output and efficiency for the TPV‐TEG systems as compared with a single TPV or TEG at a close temperature range of 1200 K for both modules. In addition, studies on TPV have been carried out on different applications such as combustion driven sources, electric cars, and residential heating systems . For instance, Gillott et al developed and tested a cascading TPV‐TEG power generating system.…”

A model study for cyclic thermal loading and thermal performance of a thermoelectric generator

“…Thermoelectric device and its applications were widely observed in waste heat recovery systems [2][3][4][5][6]. The main focus was to demonstrate the efficiency improvement of the thermal system when the waste heat was utilized by the thermoelectric modules.…”