Theoretical and experimental study on heat pipe cooled thermoelectric generators with water heating using concentrated solar thermal energy

Date, Ashwin; Date, Abhijit; Dixon, Chris; Akbarzadeh, Aliakbar

doi:10.1016/j.solener.2014.04.016

Cited by 92 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 18 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…11 the rise in sensible temperature of the water (as shown in Fig. 9) was compared to the theoretical calculation in Equation (6). In Equation (6) the effective resistance could be determined by substituting Equation (49) into 48 for experimental data.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Considering the work completed by Date (2014) [6] the instantaneous temperature of the saline water during heating can be expressed as;…”

Section: Heating Of Saline Watermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In 1961 the first real application of TEGs was used by the National Aeronautic and Space administration in spacecraft's [10]. Since then thermoelectric technology has been used to harness waste heat for industrial processes, power generation and heating applications [22,31] including boilers [6,30], cookers [5,20], pipelines [28], exhaust emissions [27], and remote communication towers [8] to generate electricity. TEGs are advantageous as they have no moving parts and require little to no maintenance [13,22].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Performance review of a novel combined thermoelectric power generation and water desalination system

et al. 2015

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

a b s t r a c tA novel combined thermoelectric power generation and water desalination system is described with a system schematic. The proposed system utilises low grade thermal energy to heat thermoelectric generators for power generation and water desalination. A theoretical analysis presents the governing equations to estimate the systems performance characteristics combined with experimental validation. Experimental set-up consists of an electric heat source, thermoelectric modules, heat pipes, a heat sink and an evaporator vessel. Four heat pipes are embedded in a heat spreader block to passively cool the bottom side of the thermoelectric cells. The condenser of these four heat pipes is immersed in a pool of saline water stored in an evaporation vessel which is maintained at sub-atmospheric pressure. The liquid to vapour phase change cooling method achieve low saturation temperature and offers a high heat transfer coefficient for the cooling of the thermoelectric generators. At the same time this method utilises the low temperature heat extracted from the cold side of the thermoelectric generator for water desalination. It was observed that at low saturation temperatures greater heat flux could be supplied to the thermoelectric generators with less heat losses to the atmosphere.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Considering the work completed by Date (2014) [6] the instantaneous temperature of the saline water during heating can be expressed as;…”

Section: Heating Of Saline Watermentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Performance review of a novel combined thermoelectric power generation and water desalination system

et al. 2015

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…One application is to use the temperature of the exhaust gas line in automobiles with TEG-based EHSs, see [10,11]. Another application is the more efficient use of solar energy, in addition to using only the visible light; the authors in [12] use the invisible, infrared light of the sun. As more than half of the energy coming from the sun is thermal energy, this seems reasonable.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimized Design of Thermoelectric Energy Harvesting Systems for Waste Heat Recovery from Exhaust Pipes

Nesarajah

Frey

2017

Applied Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract:With the increasing interest in energy efficiency and resource protection, waste heat recovery processes have gained importance. Thereby, one possibility is the conversion of the heat energy into electrical energy by thermoelectric generators. Here, a thermoelectric energy harvesting system is developed to convert the waste heat from exhaust pipes, which are very often used to transport the heat, e.g., in automobiles, in industrial facilities or in heating systems. That is why a mockup of a heating is built-up, and the developed energy harvesting system is attached. To build-up this system, a model-based development process is used. The setup of the developed energy harvesting system is very flexible to test different variants and an optimized system can be found in order to increase the energy yield for concrete application examples. A corresponding simulation model is also presented, based on previously developed libraries in Modelica ® /Dymola ® . In the end, it can be shown-with measurement and simulation results-that a thermoelectric energy harvesting system on the exhaust pipe of a heating system delivers extra energy and thus delivers a contribution for a more efficient usage of the inserted primary energy carrier.

show abstract

“…However, the static power such as thermionic converter or generator (TIC or TIG), thermoelectric converter or generator (TEC or TEG), alkali metal thermal to electric converter (AMTEC), and thermophotovoltaic converter has aroused people's concern . Therefore, many concepts of solar‐driven static converters have been reported . Recently, Liu et al demonstrated a novel integration of carbon counter electrodes–based perovskite solar cells and TEGs, which exhibits excellent photoelectric conversion efficiency after integration.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parametric study on the thermoelectric conversion performance of a concentrated solar-driven thermionic-thermoelectric hybrid generator

Xiao

Yang

2017

Int J Energy Res

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Summary A concentrated solar‐driven thermionic‐thermoelectric hybrid generator composed of solar heat collector, thermionic generator (TIG), thermoelectric generator (TEG), and radiator is introduced in this paper. A theoretical model of thermoelectric conversion performance for the hybrid generator is built up based on the heat source of the concentrated solar radiation rather than isothermal heat source. Based on the model, the impacts of related parameters on the internal temperature distributions, output power, and efficiency have been discussed. Moreover, the optimal operating conditions of the TIG‐TEG hybrid device at its maximum output power and efficiency have been determined. Results show that when cascading the TEG with the TIG, there is very little change of the TIG cathode temperature in most conditions, namely, TC ≈ TC′. Meanwhile, the anode temperature becomes higher, and the TEG cold end temperature T2 is close to the anode temperature TA′ for the single TIG system, ie, TA > TA′ ≈ T2. In theory, the optimal concentrated solar radiation I0 for the maximum output power Pmax and the maximum efficiency ηmax differs, which are I0,P = 2.5 × 106 W/m2 and I0,η = 2 × 106 W/m2, respectively, whereas the output power and efficiency of the TIG‐TEG hybrid system simultaneously reach their maximum values when the optimal TIG anode temperature TA,opt = 1025 K, the optimal TIG output voltage Vopt = 2 V, and the optimal ratio of load resistance to internal resistance (R2/R)opt = 2. However, in practice, the parameter values of I0, ΦA, and TA should be strictly controlled under 1.8 × 106 W/m2, 1.4 eV, and 660 K, respectively. Generally, the maximum output power and efficiency of the hybrid TIG‐TEG system are, respectively, 35% and 4% higher than that of the single TIG.

show abstract

Theoretical and experimental study on heat pipe cooled thermoelectric generators with water heating using concentrated solar thermal energy

Cited by 92 publications

References 18 publications

Performance review of a novel combined thermoelectric power generation and water desalination system

Performance review of a novel combined thermoelectric power generation and water desalination system

Optimized Design of Thermoelectric Energy Harvesting Systems for Waste Heat Recovery from Exhaust Pipes

Parametric study on the thermoelectric conversion performance of a concentrated solar-driven thermionic-thermoelectric hybrid generator

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About