Study of the effects of axial conduction on the performance of thermoelectric generators integrated in a heat exchanger for waste heat recovery applications

M.H. Zaher, M.Y. Abdelsalam and J.S. Cotton

Applied Energy, 2020, vol. 261, issue C, No S0306261919321221

Abstract: The electrical power generated from thermoelectric generators (TEGs) integrated in a heat exchanger is maximized by applying novel heat exchanger design criteria for waste heat recovery systems. A numerical model is developed and experimentally validated to simulate the performance of TEG-integrated heat exchangers. The performance of a heat recovery system, suitable for low temperature commercial applications ~300 °C, is investigated for a range of heat exchanger sizes of 2 to 8 TEG rows and exhaust gas mass flow rates of 0.02 to 0.08 kg/s. The adverse effect of the heat conducted axially, along the flow direction, on the total power output of the TEGs is quantified. The number of rows reaches an optimum value for a given gas flow rate beyond which a significant drop in the hot-side temperature of the upstream TEG rows occurs due to the increase of the axial conduction between successive rows. The term “Power Gain” is introduced in this study as the ratio between the power output from a system without axial conduction to that with axial conduction. Power Gain shows the potential benefits of limiting the axial conduction through the heat exchanger and values up to 1.2 times (20% increase in power) can be obtained for relatively low exhaust gas flow rates (~0.02 kg/s). Novel performance maps are developed to correlate the power output with the heat exchanger design, exhaust gas flow rate and number of TEGs. Such maps can be used to guide the optimization of the design of TEG-integrated waste heat recovery systems.

Keywords: Waste heat recovery; Thermoelectric generators; TEG; Heat exchangers; Design criteria; Axial conduction; Exhaust gas; Analytical modeling; Low temperature commercial applications (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261919321221
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:appene:v:261:y:2020:i:c:s0306261919321221

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 405891/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2019.114434

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Energy is currently edited by J. Yan

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