An experimental study on the performance of TEGs using uniform flow distribution heat exchanger for low-grade thermal energy recovery

Yuncheng Lan, Junhui Lu and Suilin Wang

Energy, 2024, vol. 292, issue C

Abstract: Low-temperature thermal energy (<100 °C) is widely present in energy systems and nature, and its utilization is of great significance for energy conservation and carbon reduction. Thermoelectric generator (TEG), without refrigerant and moving parts, can directly convert low-temperature thermal energy into high-grade electricity through the Seebeck effect. One of the biggest defects of TEG is the low efficiency from thermal to electricity. To improve the efficiency of TEG, a staggered fin was arranged in the main flow area for the heat exchanger. Meanwhile, a header with pin-finned and variable triangle geometry is applied in the inlet and outlet of heat exchange to uniform fluid flow. A TEG experimental system containing the heat exchanger whose header with pin-finned and variable triangle geometry was built to evaluate the output performance at variable load resistance, hot and cold source temperature, flow rate, flow direction, and electrically connected array configurations. Moreover, experimental results were compared with other literature. When the inlet hot and cold source temperatures are 40.8–81.0 °C and 20.0–30.0 °C, the TEG system could generate around 0.6–18.8 W with a flow rate of 5 L/min. The TEG system has relative high output performance and a low flow resistance compared to other literatures, and it is the potential to recover low-grade thermal energy recovery.

Keywords: Thermoelectric generator system; Uniform flow distribution; Low-grade thermal energy recovery; Heat exchanger (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544224002779
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:292:y:2024:i:c:s0360544224002779

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2024.130506

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().